The Opposite Side of the Mirror
by Streamingwords
Summary: A story featuring a certain redheaded Turk.  Reno gets attacked on a mission one day, and his life spirals into the bizarre.  A story about what the other FF characters were up to during the events of KH2. AU-ish.Now Reposted with formatting errors fixed
1. Chapter 1

This story has been posted before, but thanks to my ongoing war with how to use this site properly, I accidentally deleted it like an idiot. (Damn you technology, my nemesis!)

This first chapter is the pilot of the story.

Premise: A story featuring the _other_ favorite redhead. Reno is attacked one night, and his life begins to spiral further and further into the bizarre. Just a story about what was happening to the other _Final Fantasy _characters during the events of _Kingdom Hearts 2_. Slightly AU - though not in the most obvious way (Watch as I twist canon in magical methods to make it the same, but different!).

I hope that you enjoy it.

* * *

_Midgar; Three Years Ago_

"Rude. Hey."

The bald Turk was deeply engrossed in the pile of paperwork on the desk in front of him. Consequently, Rude had long since tuned out the occasional sounds of dissatisfaction from his partner. If he allowed Reno to charm him into conversation, then there was no way that they would possibly be able to clock out on time. Frankly, Rude wanted to enjoy a rare evening with no overtime.

He grunted when a ball of paper came flying over to tap against his cheek. Rude determinedly hunched further over where he was writing his report on their efforts during that day. It wasn't like he could trust Reno to perform a task as simple as filling out his own report. Rude had to balance the books for the both of them.

Then a wad of paper wedged itself between the left lense of his sunglasses, invading his line of sight altogether. It was unfortunate that his partner had such good aim. "Reno…" Rude sat upright and pulled them off. The ball of paper fell forgotten to the floor below as his dark eyes blinked disapprovingly towards his partner. "I need to get this finished. You don't want to be here all night, do you?"

"Of course not." Reno was smirking triumphantly. Now that he had Rude's attention, the fiery-haired Turk quickly shifted gears. He had been kicked back on two legs of his chair, lounging in an effortless display of pure boredom. Now he practically melted himself over the top of his own desk, mewling his displeasure as he rolled his forehead back and forth over that surface in a fan of red strands. "But it's so boring sitting here while you fill out that stupid report. Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

"You could always fill out your half on your own." Rude suggested, his baritone voice carefully schooled to avoid any trace of reproach.

Reno breezily waved a hand in the air above where his head lay, dismissing that notion immediately. "I can't do that. It's just not my thing, you know? You like the technical part. I like the violence part. It's how we work, partner."

"Precisely. So let me finish this."

"Whatever."

Fortunately, this exchange managed to keep Reno quiet. Of course, Rude wagered that since his head was still on his desk, the other Turk might have simply fallen asleep. If napping kept Reno silent until the task was finished, then Rude was happy for his partner to doze. His work went much quicker without interruptions. Rude glanced towards the clock as he filed the completed pile into his box for outgoing materials.

Right on time.

"You ready, Reno?"

Reno unfolded himself up from his desk, not bothering to hide his wide yawn as he stretched his arms out to either side. "You bet! Man, that was hard work today."

They stood in unison, the two men long since synched from years of operating as one unit. Rude pulled his black jacket off the back of his chair where he had carefully folded it, slipping it on. He was still belting it neatly in place when Reno tossed on his own jacket, the redhead ignoring the buttons altogether. Rude led the way out as they headed for the elevators, murmuring, "I'll see you tomorrow, bright and early. Unless you're going to need another ride home?"

"Nah, got my bike out of the shop." Reno answered.

"Finally?" Rude glanced back to the smaller man. "I didn't think that it was damaged so badly. What took them so long to release it to you?"

"Uh, well." With a wry expression, Reno reached up to scratch at the back of his head. "I kinda had to pay them first. Which took me a while. But in my defense, I'm pretty sure that they charged me double, being a Turk and all."

"In other words, you were broke and they were holding your bike for ransom."

"Something like that."

Rude shook his head. "I still can't figure out where your salary goes when it disappears so quickly. You make as much as I do."

"It's a mystery to me as well, man." Reno laughed weakly as they stood near the elevator doors, waiting for it to reach their floor. A small chime sounded when it finally arrived. The double doors slid open and they both moved to step inside. However, they found the way blocked.

Both men blinked uncertainly at the imposing figure of their leader, Tseng, as the lead Turk stepped out of the elevator to stand in front of them. Tseng quirked a dark eyebrow at the pair, his voice professionally cool. "Leaving for the night, gentlemen?"

"Just on our way out the door, boss man." Reno's smile lacked any true power. If Tseng was here, then there was an almost certain chance that their efforts to leave on time had just been ruined. "We'll see you tomorrow!" The redhead waved casually as he made a break for the open elevator doors and the freedom beyond.

He groaned as the back of his jacket collar was snatched.

"Not so fast, Reno. I just received a report. We have an assignment and I will need the two of you to assist with the investigation."

"Can't it wait until later?" Reno whined half-heartedly. He knew that protesting was pointless, but part of him had to try to get out of it.

Tseng shook his head. "No. This is an urgent situation. We've been getting reports of unidentified hostiles threatening citizens in the Slums. This order has come directly from upstairs; our mobilization is immediate, and after we access the situation, it will be our call whether to bring in troops or not to handle the developing crisis."

Reno sighed. "Okay, okay. People in danger. Turks save the day. Good 'P.R.'. I got it."

* * *

"Shit!"

Reno swore loudly as he took another wrong step, icy water splashing up over the legs of his pants. He swung his flashlight wildly down to reflect on the slick surface of his shoe as he shook it firmly to chase off some of that foul-smelling water. The longer that he stayed in this situation, the angrier he was growing.

How the hell had he ended up being the one stuck investigating in a rank old sewer tunnel? Tseng was undoubtedly mad at him for something. This was his superior's torturous method of punishing him for bad behavior. That was the only explanation that Reno could come up with as to why he'd been assigned to this specific area, while Tseng and Rude got to search through more inhabitable areas above.

Tseng had filled them in on the situation on their way over from their headquarters at Shinra. They'd been receiving reports from the locals in the Slums that people had been spotting unusual activity throughout the area. Residents claimed to have spotted strange creatures roaming through the Slums. Dark creatures. The descriptions they had to go on were vague. No one had risked approaching these unknown creatures to get a better look.

Now Reno was looking for little monsters in this nasty place. Yet so far the only "dark little creatures" that he'd encountered had been the rats scurrying around his feet. He could have just parted from the others and hit one of the local taverns instead of following through with his orders, but it was a matter of pride. Since he was getting paid, Reno was going to make an effort to earn that overtime.

"And why is that, Reno? 'Cause you have a grudging respect for your superiors? Nah. 'Cause you're a masochist that likes to live dangerously? Maybe. But really, it's because you're just a nice kind of guy." He snorted to himself as the echoes of his own voice floated back to him from the darkness.

He reached a branch in the sewers, the tunnel spreading out in two different directions. Reno squinted to see as his flashlight illuminated either one. The light revealed nothing except for the pathetic drips of water that rained down from above here and there throughout the tunnels. This was really making him crave a cigarette. He had his lighter with him, but had left his pack of smokes back up in Rude's car.

Freezing, cranky, wet, smelly, tired, and suffering a nicotine fit. Something was bound to burst.

"What the hell. I'm feeling like taking a left first." Reno muttered sourly to himself as he shuffled forward in that direction, picking his steps carefully to avoid slipping down into that dirty water again. There was debris that made the going more tentative than he would have preferred; rocks, rats, and some items that Reno did not want to even guess on littered the path ahead.

Aside from the occasional rumble of a car passing above him, these tunnels were silent. If someone like Reno could barely tolerate being in this kind of environment then he strongly doubted that anything else would want to dwell down here. Except for the rats, of course. Reno's progress slowed to a stop as he passed under a shaft of light from a grill overhead, a few dull slivers of streetlamps breaking through the monotony of the darkness around him. He angled his flashlight up towards the grill to watch a few drips fall from the earlier rain of the evening. "Man. If I get a cold from this, then they're going to owe me some sick leave."

"Reno."

His interest in the grill was abruptly interrupted by the sound of his own name being barked at him. That sudden burst of noise in the relative silence startled Reno badly enough that he lost his grip with the flashlight in his hand. The Turk juggled it desperately in an attempt to save it, but could only sigh in defeat as he heard a dull splash somewhere beside him. No way in hell was he going to reach into that muck to get his flashlight back!

"Reno, report."

Exasperated, Reno's temper flared up as he snatched the communicator up from where he'd latched it to his hip, yelling, "What? You scared the hell out of me!"

Tseng was slow to respond. When he did, he seemed immune to Reno's explosion of emotion over the line. "Reno. We have gone over the topic of appropriate protocol for communications several times already. When I call to you, you are supposed to say, 'Go for Reno'. Copy?"

"Yeah, okay! Go for Reno or whatever."

"And you should acknowledge the end of your transmission by saying 'Copy'." Tseng added.

Reno felt tempted to punch the wall beside him. However, a surge of rational thought reminded him that it would just result in a sore hand and a whole lot of lingering dissatisfaction. He grit his teeth together, features pinched as he counted numbers in his head. When he keyed his communicator again, Reno pitched his voice towards calm, though it ended up sounding more like sweet poison. "Go for Reno and copy, boss man."

"What's your status?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm in a tunnel. It's freezing and wet. The smell of this pit has long since burned an impression into my brain, and I left my smokes behind. I've seen nothing but rats and drips for the past half an hour. How the hell do you think my status is? Copy?"

"So you haven't seen anything, then. Rude is heading to our meeting point and also has nothing to report. Start making your way back to us and we will try another location."

Reno deflated slightly with relief. Finally, he could get out of here. "Copy that. Though I dropped my flashlight when you spooked me. Might take me a bit longer to find my way back, and-"

He paused, releasing the button to talk as Reno swung his head towards the deeper end of the tunnel. Had he just… heard something?

"Reno?"

"Yeah. Hold a sec, boss." Reno responded distractedly, squinting in that direction. He strained his ears in an attempt to listen in the silence in the wake of Tseng's voice.

The redhead fished his other hand into the pocket of his jacket. He closed his fingers around the trusty metal of his lighter, pulling the square of silver out. With a practiced motion of nimble fingers, Reno brought the flame to life, a dull shuddery illumination bathing the walls of the tunnel around him. It might have just been more rats. Or perhaps it was a particularly large rat. Yet it didn't sound anything like the scurrying vermin that had been plaguing him this entire trip.

His instincts warned Reno to play it safe. And instinct was something that he relied on heavily to keep his ass alive. The Turk felt his adrenaline building; whatever it was out there, it was going to be the lucky recipient of Reno's foul mood. "Yo, bastard! Stop hiding back there and come the hell out. You're messing around with a Turk now. If you give up right now, I might be nice. If I have to come down there, though, then there is gonna be pain. You get me?"

Reno didn't expect a verbal response to his words. However, he was counting on a reaction to his cocky bravado. That was universal, no matter what the species.

The scrambling sound in the tunnel ahead of him grew louder as whatever it was came towards him. Reno raised the lighter up higher to try and cast the light a little better in that direction. "That's right. Come on, I'm right over here." He slowly lowered his communicator back to his belt, clipping it into place. That freed his hand up to creep towards the weapon stationed at the lower part of his back. Reno wrapped his fingers tightly around the mag-rod so that he could slide if out quickly if needed. He smirked in anticipation.

Then the shadows in the tunnel ahead of him began to move, which drained all the bravado out of him and dropped that smirk off his face. Reno watched as that inky blackness began to pull itself from the surface of the tunnel walls, taking on substance right in front of him. The Turk felt his heart leap up in his throat as it began to beat dangerously fast. "W-what the… hell?" Reno whipped his weapon out, clenching it tightly at his side as he took a step back. The lighter was getting hot in his fingers. However, he did not want to plunge himself into blackness with these developments.

As Reno skidded back a step, those shadowy blobs continued to approach. They looked as if they had sprouted limbs as they took on a more solid form. Reno could see them wavering there like patches of walking darkness. He now understood why no one could describe these things as any differently than 'dark creatures'. How was he going to successfully apprehend shadow monsters?

The tunnel was beginning to clog with those shadowy figures. Reno took another few steps back in retreat, whispering to himself. "Shit, shit, shit." He needed to alert Tseng to the situation. It was a choice between losing his light or else losing his weapon. Reno hated either option.

The light sputtered and died as Reno quickly snatched his communicator back up. "Reno to Tseng! I found 'em. Requesting backup right fucking now!"

"Reno? Talk to me. What is your location?" The alarm in Reno's voice was enough that his superior spared him another lecture on radio protocol.

"I'm in the tunnel still. Maybe under Fifth Avenue. I have found the creatures. Shadow things. Tons of them!"

"We're on our way, Reno!" Rude's voice sounded over the line, offering him some mild reassurance. If Rude said that he'd be there, then he'd be there, come hell or high water.

Not that it did him much good at the moment. Reno felt his stomach twist as he watched a flood of baleful yellow eyes opening up from that mass, glowing in the darkness. He sighed heavily, wryly murmuring to himself, "It just isn't my night, yo?"

Then that writhing mass burst forward towards him, and Reno didn't even have time to raise his weapon before he felt the frozen touch of that darkness envelope him completely.

* * *

_Static._

_The world shimmered in a chaotic blend of black and white._

_It took on substance little by little, and brought with it the sounds of voices that he did not recognize._

"_This is proof that our experiment appears to have been successful."_

"_The little buggers appear to have some use after all!"_

Where the hell am I?

_"Ah, good. He's sentient. I was half-afraid we were going to end up with another brainless copy like the others."_

_The world materialized around him, as faces formed against the background of all that white. He did not know any of these people. Something inside of him told him that things were not as they were supposed to be. This was not natural._

"_Can you hear me?"_

Of course I hear you. You're standing right there, aren't you? I'm not deaf.

_"Bit of an attitude in this one already. That should be interesting. Let's take him to Xemnas. He's waiting for us."_

Who the hell is Xemnas? ….. For that matter, who the hell am I?

_"You?" One of those faces bent closer to him, the scar on it dark in his blurred vision. "You're Nobody."_

* * *

Rude and Tseng hurried through the dank maze of the sewers in search of their comrade. They had lost radio contact with Reno after that last transmission, which could only mean that the redheaded Turk had been incapacitated – or worse. The two of them searched thoroughly with the light of their flashlights, trying to find some sign of which direction Reno had gone. Reno's claim to have been near Fifth Avenue had proved inaccurate. So they had to branch off from that point, since it was the only reference which they'd been given in order to operate by.

"He can be terrible with direction now and then." Rude muttered darkly. Internally, he was cursing himself for having let his partner end up in this situation. It was his place to make sure that the redhead had him for backup, no matter what.

Tseng made a soft sound in his throat. "I shouldn't have sent him down here alone. But now isn't the time to beat ourselves up over the situation. Finding him is our priority. Then I'll go meet with the troops and you take Reno to the Shinra medics if he's injured."

"Understood."

They continued for some time, until Tseng caught sight of something shining in the mucky water between them. Despite the horrid smell of it, the Turk knelt down to examine it more closely to confirm the source. "Reno's flashlight. He dropped it when I last contacted him. He's close. Very close."

"How far do you suppose he-?" Rude's question was cut off by a few loud explosive sounds further down that left corridor. Both of them knew immediately, from their extensive training, what it was.

Gunfire.

Rude took off ahead of Tseng, not even waiting for his superior to stand back up as the larger Turk hurried in that direction. If someone was shooting a gun down here, it had to be someone other than Reno. The firepower sounded far too impressive for any Shinra-regulated handguns. It might very well have been the assailant attacking their fellow Turk.

Tseng had the clarity of mind to draw out his gun. Rude was prepared just to charge in with bare hands to fight the attacker. They rounded the corner together, prepared to do battle, yet stopped themselves just short of launching their surge when they took in the vision of the tunnel ahead of them.

The shadow creatures that Reno had reported were scattering, surging wildly around in the deeper end of the tunnel. They were running away from the threat that had come upon them. That threat which fired shot after shot into the depths of their shadow forms, shattering their solidity with the efficiency of a machine. In the flash of that gunfire, the sharp bursts of light highlighted back across a wraith-like figure that was poised defensively there in the tunnel, a pool of blood spread around it.

No, not blood. Fabric.

A crimson cloak.

They had come expecting a battle. Instead, they found Vincent Valentine.

The mysterious man lowered the triple barrels of his gun as the creatures vanished from the tunnels, his head turning slowly in the direction where the two Turks were standing there behind him. He did not seem the least bit alarmed nor surprised with their presence, Vincent's eyes shining red as they seemed to swallow up the light coming from their flashlights. "You finally arrived, I see."

"We're looking for Reno." Tseng had not holstered his weapon. He kept his gun gripped in both hands, knowing that he could take a steady shot at Vincent if needed.

"He's right here." Easing slowly up, Vincent's empty hand swung down, gold-plated claws sweeping aside his cloak to reveal the figure of Reno lying unconscious on the stone floor of the sewer. "Those creatures had swarmed him. It's fortunate that I arrived when I did."

As the man stepped away from where he had been protecting the Turk's prone form, Rude hurriedly approached his fallen comrade. He immediately felt for Reno's vital signs. The redhead was paler than usual, features unnervingly relaxed. Vincent crouched down on the other side of Reno as he made his own study of the unconscious man. "I couldn't tell exactly what they were doing to him. It appeared as though they were pulling something out of his chest. I didn't have time to examine him – is he alive?"

"Yes." Rude reported, as he felt the weak rhythm of Reno's pulse underneath the pressure of his fingertips. "But barely. I can use a materia cure for him now, but it will probably take an actual medic to do the rest."

Tseng was already on his communicator before Rude even glanced his way, giving directions to the units that were stationed above them to send a medical team down. Rude slipped an arm underneath Reno's shoulders, elevating that limp form further upright. He did not like the state that the redhead was in right now, nor did he like the way that Reno's head rolled lifelessly against his shoulder. Vincent watched Rude work, detached from the scene, as if nothing in this situation truly involved him.

"Thank you for protecting him." Rude said quietly to the other man, keeping his volume low so that Tseng could continue giving orders.

Vincent blinked up from Reno's pale face to peer at Rude. Despite priding himself on being a tough guy, something about that gaze still managed to intimidate him. Vincent's flat voice didn't do much to improve that. "I hadn't set out with that intention. Things simply worked out that way. It was those creatures that I was after. Apparently they have been victimizing people in this area."

Rude nodded. "That's why we came here to investigate."

The shadow of Tseng shifted, as the lead Turk came to stand close to his teammates. He peered down at Vincent as he lowered the communicator back down to his side once his orders had been completed. "I am surprised to find you down here, Mister Valentine. I was unaware that anyone other than Shinra had acted upon this situation."

"It occurred to me that I should attempt to do something about them." Vincent murmured quietly as he regarded the dark-haired Turk.

Tseng nodded curtly. "I can understand your interest in acting. It is what a responsible citizen might do. However, I hope that you can understand what I mean when I tell you that you should leave these affairs to the proper authorities. Namely, Shinra and the Turks."

"I understand perfectly well what you mean, Tseng." Vincent answered, and Rude detected a hint of underlying amusement or even sarcasm in the man's muffled voice. "However, I hope that you can understand what I mean when I tell you that I will do as I please, regardless of Shinra or the Turks." The man straightened, tatters of fabric sweeping around his feet as he rose to his full height. "Though I will leave you to manage the rest of this on your own. Your men are on their way and the threat has gone for the time being."

"Let him play hero if he wants to. Not many around anymore."

The three men looked down as Reno's nasal voice slurred drowsily from below. Reno's color had improved considerably already, the man's eyes fighting to open as he fought to regain consciousness. Rude gave him a light squeeze in the grip of his arm to reassure the redhead that all was well. That calmed Reno's struggle for now.

"He is right. I may be the only one left." Vincent surmised, mostly to himself. He looked past the trio as noises began to sound in the tunnel that they had traveled. There were more lights bouncing off the walls down the corridor, heading in their direction. "Your men are here."

"So it would seem." Tseng and Rude swung their heads around in that direction. Tseng flashed his own light in that direction, using the beam to signal against the opposite wall to give the others an indication of their location. He then turned back around, words reluctant. "Still, Rude was correct in expressing our gratitude for your…."

Tseng blinked at the empty tunnel, voice trailing off. Vincent had vanished silently, as if some breeze had carried him away into the shadows. The lead Turk shook his head, then stepped to meet the medical crew.

* * *

A/N: Just to clarify, _italic_ text in unbroken format is how I separate the events pertaining to Axel apart from Reno. I had to fix some formatting errors from the last time this was published.


	2. Chapter 2

If you couldn't guess by now, this story is more or less rated for Reno's mouth.

* * *

_Midgar, 6 months later_

The Turks had succeeded in yet another mission to quell the attempts of hostile forces of invading their neighbors. It had become a pattern over the past year, as new would-be dictators decided that they would be better served by expanding their territories. And while the military was occupied primarily with maintaining a tentative peace in Wutai, it fell upon other departments of Shinra to keep balance and order alive in a place that seemed on the verge of unraveling at its seams.

Rude glanced away from the panel of devices in front of him, the course that he was flying their helicopter familiar enough after several of these trips that the Turk could probably have navigated it with a blindfold. He took a minute to briefly examine the man next to him, where his partner had fallen asleep. It was unlike Reno to relax enough while they were air-bound to pull something like that off. Normally, the redhead not only stayed on edge from take-off to touch-down, but Reno also habitually insisted that he be the one to do the piloting of whatever aircraft they ended up traveling in.

While it didn't bother Rude that his partner was napping on the job, he was concerned with the issue of how volatile Reno's naps tended to be lately. The redheaded Turk tended to slip into sleep rather easily ever since the incident in the sewers months ago. And Reno always ended up having fitful sleep – which always resulted in his mood turning increasingly foul. Rude reached over, a gloved hand prodding at Reno's shoulder to wake him up when the quiet, disturbed sounds which the redhead made began to occur more frequently.

"Reno. Wake up."

"Nn, what?" The redhead's eyes fought to open, a scowl in place as he came back into awareness of himself and his environment. Reno slid further up in his seat as he rubbed at his eyes vigorously with both hands. "Man! Fell asleep again, did I?"

"You weren't out long." Rude informed him. "We're still about an hour off from landing. I have everything under control if you want to go back to sleep."

Reno shook his head firmly. "No. Trust me, partner, I'm good. You want me to take over the controls for a bit?"

"I'm fine. Just talk to me for now."

"Okay, sure. What do you want to talk about?"

Rude considered it for a few seconds, then murmured. "How are you feeling? Have the pains gotten any better?"

"They come and go." Reno reached a hand up automatically to his chest, rubbing at it absently with the heel of his palm, as if his partner's question had reminded him about that ache. "All that running around today certainly didn't help, you know? But it's not like I can just stand around while you guys do all the work."

"You know that you could, Reno. You could stay in one spot as a communication base. Or guard the chopper, or any number of things that wouldn't have you running around." Rude glanced over to the redhead. "The only reason why you keep active is because it bothers you to feel useless."

"Ain't that the truth?" Reno muttered darkly, before his hand shifted to pat at his pocket. He sighed in defeated frustration and bumped his head roughly back against the cushion of his seat. "Goddamnit, I'd give anything for a cigarette right now, yo."

Rude smirked at the controls in front of him, careful to hide the expression from the other Turk. He found it hard not to find too much enjoyment in the lack of air pollution now that Reno was restricted from smoking. Since it was an order from the Shinra medics, then the redhead was forced to abide by the smoking ban while on the clock. "Are you still craving those things? I would think that your system would be over them by now, after all this time."

"It's only been a week since the quacks stopped me!" Reno threw his hands up in the air in disgust, face twisting disapprovingly. "They let me smoke to my content, and then out of nowhere they suddenly decide that it's bad for my health? I've been smoking for years, man. Years!"

"Strange. I seem to recall from the report that they only asked you to stop smoking after your last examination indicated that it was damaging your heart at an alarming speed." Rude murmured, then immediately regretted his words.

Any trace of Reno's good humor melted away right after that, as the redhead looked quickly away towards the window with a distant, "Yeah.."

They fell into silence, as Reno stared off and Rude internally swam in a pool of guilt. He should have known better than to so casually mention Reno's heart. It had been something of a taboo topic for the past sixth months, since the redhead was released from the hospital after his attack in the sewers. The fiery Turk had been given a clean bill of health, clear of any permanent physical damage, with the exception of one vital part.

Reno had been left with a heart condition that baffled even the most experienced Shinra scientist.

They had put the Turk through the gamut, as far as running tests on Reno to see what had happened. Apparently, they could find nothing at all physically wrong with his heart on any level. Aside from some damage from Reno's less-than-healthy lifestyle, the organ had been in perfect health. But despite no sign of damage to it, Reno's heart was considerably weakened. It was operating only at half its old strength.

The result was that Reno had been put on restrictions for work, life, and everything else. He was prone to sudden aches in his chest, often crippling in their intensity. His blood was not circulating as well as it was before, so Reno often fell victim to dizzy spells that effected his ability to drive, to shoot, or even to walk down the block when it got really bad. Reno's vices had been quickly taken away from him – drinking, sex, late nights partying – and now even smoking had been added to the list of restrictions of what Reno was not allowed, for the sake of his heart.

And Reno without vices just wasn't Reno.

Rude, being the closest person in the redhead's circle of people, had noticed far more changes than just a loss of physical power from his partner. The sudden fits of sleep, Reno's restlessness, and the dreams… "Hey, Reno?" He broke the silence as quietly as he could.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"You want to tell me about your latest dream?"

It had become a regular ritual of theirs, ever since the first time Reno had confided about the dreams that he had to his partner. They had been driving the redhead out of his mind before that. Rude made it a point to be the perfect outlet for Reno to vent at.

Reno cocked his head as he looked over at the bald man. "You sure?"

"Positive. Tell me about it."

With a shrug, Reno wet his lips as he fixed his gaze to the landscape ahead of them, where the edge of the clouds was already giving way to a dark twilight sky. "Okay. In this last one, I'm in this big white castle. I don't mean, like, just a little white. I mean that the whole thing is completely white. Doors, walls, windows, you name it. And I was bored out of my mind. Who the fuck gets bored out of their own mind in a dream, you know?"

Reno reached up to scratch at the side of his head, ruffling more crimson hairs loose from his ponytail. "Then this chick shows up. A blond dame – and she was really hot. But I also got the sense that she was also a major psycho bitch, so I guess it kind of ruined the attractiveness. I was standing there, trying not to stare at her tits, and she starts talking about this big plan. Something about a kid, and a key, and some kinda organization. I can't really remember any details about what we were talking about."

"There's some pink-haired pretty boy in there somewhere, too, but I don't even wanna begin to analyze where that came from in my subconscious. I guess I was even trying to tune him out in my dream or something. These people weren't really all that important to me, either. I just had that feeling, you know? But the kid that we were talking about – the kid was something important."

Rude nodded thoughtfully. This kid seemed to be a regular fixture in some of the dreams that Reno was having. However, he wisely decided not to point it out, allowing the redhead to keep describing it. Reno was still going on, after all.

"You're probably thinking that I dream about this kid too much or something. I noticed that too, believe me. But there was something different this time. I got this really weird sense in my dream that this kid was a completely different kid, but it was somehow the same kid. Like it was the same person who had been in my dreams before, yet this kid was somehow different this time, physically and otherwise. Though I am not sure exactly what I think about this new kid who reminds me of the other kid. I spent most of the dream brooding about it."

Reno paused to consider everything that he had said. Rude wondered if he were going to go into more detail about the kid, but when Reno opened his mouth again, a far more predictable track of thought came with it. "She really was a looker, though. That chick I mean. She definitely was my type: tough and feisty."

With a sigh, Rude glanced towards the watch on his wrist. Once Reno got onto a tangent on a woman then the remainder of the conversation tended to run towards the redhead reliving his fondest female memories – complete with all the intimate details. Rude gave an internal prayer of gratitude to whatever deity might listen to a Turk that their flight was going to be very short from here.

* * *

_Midgar_, _Present_

"Would one of you kindly wake him back up?"

Rude turned as soon as Tseng spoke the words, but it was Elena who beat him to it. The petite blonde had already swiveled efficiently in her chair in order to deliver an unforgiving smack to the back of Reno's lowered head. Judging by the expression on her face, she was all too happy to fill her superior's orders.

The effect was immediate. Reno was startled awake with all the composure of a cat taken by surprise, practically jumping from his chair while Elena was already settling back in hers. The redhead scrambled to keep hold of his copy of the report they all held, but it inevitably dropped. Papers scattered around the floor of the office, directly where Tseng stood in front of the board where he was writing out their latest briefing.

Reno went red to the tips of his ears, giving the illusion that his entire head were on fire, as the Turk recovered himself as quickly as possible. He knelt out of his chair, muttering an apology as he began to gather up the papers that now littered the floor. Reno was clutching them into a messy pile, ignoring the sound of giggling Elena was poorly covering up behind a hand as they watched him work.

As Reno reached for the last paper, he found a black shoe coming to pin it to the spot. With a hidden grimace, the redhead looked up wryly to his superior as Tseng frowned down at him. "Reno. Since it is apparent that you were obviously hanging on my every word for this briefing, would you be so kind as to recap on everything that we just discussed?"

"Uh, sure, boss." Jerking the paper free from under Tseng's foot, Reno eased back into his chair with a quick look towards the other Turks. Rude tried to convey some kind of warning to his partner. However, with sunglasses on, this was difficult to accomplish. The bald Turk tried not to wince when Reno began to talk. "So, Wutai is still on the fritz. We maybe have some spots to investigate about that sketchy company that has been expanding its operations downtown. The boss wants us to check in with the overseers on the building sites to see how well the progress is going on rebuilding headquarters. Um... that about it?"

Tseng stared at him flatly. "I'm rather impressed, Reno."

"What, on my underestimated potential for retaining information?"

"No." Their leader shook his head. "For your apparent ability to predict the future." He looked towards the other two, eyebrows rising. "If the rest of you are ready, shall we start the briefing?"

* * *

Rude grunted as he got punched in the shoulder, glancing towards his partner. "What was that for?"

"Why didn't you warn me that he hadn't started the briefing yet? I looked like a total idiot spewing out that stuff, considering Tseng hadn't even started talking." Reno hissed at him, risking a peek over his shoulder towards where Elena and Tseng were still in conversation.

"I tried. I was giving you a warning with my eyes."

"While wearing a pair of shades! How the hell am I supposed to 'read your eyes' when you're wearing something over them, man?"

"That did occur to me a second too late. By then, you were already talking." Rude shrugged by way of apology. Then he reached down to take hold of Reno by his elbow, beginning to pull his smaller partner further away from where Elena and Tseng stood.

Reno, of course, was unable to take the sudden forced guidance without some form of protest. "Hey! What's the big idea?" He balked a bit as Rude pulled him along, digging in his feet, which was drawing the attention of their leader.

Rude squeezed the redhead as a warning, hearing a soft 'Ow!' from Reno as he dropped his voice even lower in volume to whisper hurriedly. "Just come with me. We need to talk, out of present company."

Finally catching on, Reno was smart not to look back in the direction of the other two Turks. He relented to being pulled along by the bald man, blinking around them as Rude pulled them out into the hallway outside of the briefing room, as they both checked to see if anyone else was around. Reno reached up both hands in order to jerk his jacket back on a little straighter as he frowned at Rude. "Okay. So what's so secretive that you couldn't talk about it in front of Tseng?"

"Not here." Rude tapped a gloved finger against his lips. "Let's go for a walk outside. You could use some fresh air, right?"

"Fresh air?" Reno snorted loudly as they began to walk down the hallway towards the elevator. "Hell, I could use a smoke, a drink and a randy woman, but I guess I will settle for 'fresh air', if that's all I got to look forward to."

They rode the elevator down in silence. Reno stared out the window, eyes distant and dreaming. Rude spent his time carefully studying the other from behind the shield of his sunglasses. He watched for any trace of an impending show of weakness from the redhead as they headed out into the sunlight. Of course, this meant that Reno was already reaching into an interior pocket, slipping his own pair of sunglasses to shield from the bright light. Without being able to see Reno's eyes, it made the fiery Turk almost impossible to read. "I think we're good and surrounded by some fresh air right now, Rude. How 'bout you tell me what the big deal is now?"

"They're considering retiring you." Rude stated bluntly. He allowed Reno some time to absorb the words, seeing the redhead's mouth go slack in surprise. "Tseng stopped me on my way into the briefing room to tell me. He told me that he wanted me to review some of the Shinra policies about working solo. I think it was his way of dropping a hint."

"Retire me?" Reno's head cocked sharply, before he dismissively shook his head. "Nah. There's no way. They couldn't possibly do something as stupid as that. I mean there are only four of us left who are officially Turks. I doubt they could afford the loss of manpower." He smirked and tilted his face forward so that Rude caught a glimpse of blue over the rim of his sunglasses. "Not only that, but the big boss man adores me, you know? I'm so charming and witty. Rufus would get bored way too quick without my endearing antics around to keep him amused."

Rude spread his hands out to either side. "I'm just telling you what I know, Reno. Take it as a warning. If you keep up behaving as you are, then they'll probably just have the Medics remove you from active duty altogether."

That made Reno frown, the redhead looking aside, frustrated. He pivoted around, hands sliding into the pockets of his slacks as he turned his back on his partner, sullen. "It's not like I'm doing it on purpose. I can't control when it happens. Trust me, I've tried. I feel like I'm not fully in control of myself anymore, you know?"

"I know." Rude looked down to study the pavement below his shoes. "I believe you, partner. I know you better than anyone, after all." He raised a hand, adjusting his tie with an awkward clearing of his throat. "I just.. don't want them to leave me without a partner. Or, even worse, stick me with some rookie."

Reno met his words with silence, which surprised Rude a bit. He saw the redhead slump a little. Then he noticed that Reno's shoulders began to shake. Along with the rest of his body. That was when he realized that the redhead was struggling not to laugh. When Rude grumbled about it, Reno seemed unable to contain it any longer. He burst out laughing, bending forward with the force of it, even slapping a hand against his knee to brace himself from falling over, as Reno gasped out. "Oh. Oh, man! Rude, you are a total piece of work!"

"I don't see what's so funny."

Reno laughed even harder seeing how offended Rude was by his reaction. He whirled around to pounce on the bigger man with a broad grin, an arm draping itself companionably across his partner's shoulders. "You're a riot, man. All big and tough, before you open your mouth and say something all sweet like that." Reno's hand reached up, rubbing vigorously over the smooth surface of Rude's bald head. "That's what I love about you."

"I'm glad you find me so amusing." Rude muttered darkly, though he did not fight Reno's easy affection. He thought about it for a long minute while Reno hung there smirking at him, then nodded. "Okay. Yeah. I guess I can see where that might be a little amusing."

Their good humor was interrupted when Rude's cell phone began to chime inside of his pocket. He shrugged Reno off as he reached to retrieve it, eyeing the name and number that came up on the screen. "It's Tseng.."

Reno waved him quickly to answer it, standing nearby as Rude put the cell phone to his ear as he answered their superior's call. "This is Rude." The redhead strained to hear what Tseng was saying on the other end of the line, but found that he couldn't catch any of the words. So Reno only caught Rude's responses, the bald Turk frowning at whatever he was hearing. "Yes. Yes, sir. Of course, I understand. We will be there immediately."

As Rude closed his phone, Reno scowled at his partner. "By the tone of your voice, that sounded pretty urgent. Something come up?"

"Tseng will fill us in. Come on. Let's get back upstairs."

* * *

They were surprised to find that the briefing room had gone from nearly empty to stuffed full by the time that Reno and Rude made their way back from downstairs. Somehow, this had been organized with astonishing speed. Reno pushed his way through the clusters of men wearing Shinra military uniforms, earning quite a few dirty looks that he naturally ignored, clearing a path for himself and Rude that took them deeper into the room.

Tseng raised a hand to catch their attention where he stood towards the front of the crowd, a few batches of Shinra scientists speaking excitedly nearby where the lead Turk waited for their arrival. Reno slipped off his sunglasses and shoved them into a pocket, ducking his head low as he tried to get past the gaggle of medics without catching their attention.

"Ah, Turk Reno. We were just talking about you!" He found himself getting taken hold of by one of the men in the white coats, as Reno was yanked in amidst that cluster "I was just telling my associates here about your condition. Would you mind elaborating to them about your symptoms?"

"Uh, well, it hardly seems like a good time right now, fellas." Reno answered lamely, as he searched wildly around in the crowd to see where he had lost Rude in the chaos. In truth, these medics tended to make him feel like a fish in a circle of sharks, considering all the horror stories that he'd heard about these guys and their experiments.

A gloved hand snared hold of his jacket, as Reno found himself getting dragged out to safety from their intensely curious studies. He clung gratefully to his rescuer, clamping a hand on Tseng's forearm to steady himself as the superior Turk drew the redhead over to where they were stationed. "Wow, thanks, Tseng. My hero."

"We can't have you getting lost at such a critical time." Tseng murmured quietly as he thrust Reno to stand next to Rude. "This matter deals directly with you, after all. You're something of the star of this show."

"Me? What do you mean?"

Tseng waved him to silence as the noise of the crowd began to quiet with a few hurried whispers for quiet. Someone in the back of the room shouted over the fading din, "Make room for the President!"

People in the room moved quickly to clear a path. Elena stepped out of the throng first, pausing at the edge of the crowd as she finished with her task of escorting their leader into the briefing room. She had no trouble shoving a few stragglers out of the way when they weren't fast enough in moving, before nodding respectfully to the man behind her. "Go ahead, Sir."

Rufus Shinra stepped quickly through the crowd, flanked by his lead scientist, Professor Hojo. The scientist was whispering to the president as the pair made their way to the front of the room, undoubtedly to where Rufus would address them all with whatever major news this clearly was, Hojo carrying a mug of coffee in one hand and a controller in the other. Rufus waved Hojo to silence as he reached his place up front. "I see that all the departments have responded, just as I requested. Thank you, Tseng, for getting them here on such short notice." The lead Turk bent stiffly at the waist in response, though Rufus' attention had already moved past the man to settle on Reno.

"Reno. Would you mind joining me up here?" He raised a hand, beckoning casually to the redhead, despite the fact that it was more of an order than a request.

Clearing his throat, Reno shuffled forward from the safety of the Turks, casting an uncertain glance in the direction of Hojo. The scientist was looking at him with a trace of.. glee? Excitement? Whatever it was, it struck Reno as horribly creepy. He quickly looked away from the scientist to focus on his boss. "Sir?"

"In a moment." Rufus stationed that upraised hand on Reno's shoulder, maintaining that hold on the Turk as he twisted to look towards Hojo. "First, Professor Hojo will fill this assembly in as to why I have gathered everyone here so urgently."

With a bow, Hojo placed his mug down on a table beside him, lifting the controller in his hand as he pointed it towards the large screen that dominated the briefing room, as the overhead lights dimmed. "Gentlemen – and ladies – I present to you Shinra's latest discovery." He clicked a button on the controller, the screen lighting up with a holographic image that materialized in considerable size. There was a scatter of murmurs from those in the crowd when the picture completely took shape.

For Reno, though, there was a sudden wash of terror.

He found himself looking up at an image of one of the very creatures that he had encountered in the sewers on that fateful evening so long ago. It was captured in perfect detail, just as he recalled it in his memory; vaguely humanoid in its basic shape, with a round body and head, definite arms and legs. Reno remembered precisely how those yellow eyes had looked in the darkness of the sewers, glowing bright despite the lack of any light source. Some of his horror must have leaked out onto his face because Rufus tightened his grip a little on Reno's shoulder to break his fixation with the image. As Reno averted his eyes, Hojo began to speak to the crowd.

"This is an image of an unidentified alien creature that some of our troops found during a routine checkup on the outskirts of Midgar. They were able to contain the alien life form with the help of some materia supplies that were on hand, before bringing it here for my department to analyze in our laboratories. While we could have easily dismissed it as merely a newly discovered life form of some unknown species, it came to our attention that there have been numerous reports about these very creatures being seen within the city limits."

Hojo looked up to the projection, clicking a few buttons that rotated the image. "After further study we were able to determine that these creatures are not merely a new species of animal. In fact, we discovered that they were actually sentient, almost on par with humans, in their ability to adapt to situations. We also deduced that these creatures in fact are drawn to heavily populated areas, such as Midgar, due to the nature of what they seem to search out, harvest, and apparently return to whatever place these creatures come from. With your permission, Mister President, may I elaborate on the subject?"

"Proceed, Professor Hojo." Rufus murmured, his eyes sweeping over the crowd. "They should be informed as to what we will be dealing with."

"Thank you, sir." Hojo pushed his eyeglasses higher on the bridge of his nose, retrieving his mug of coffee from the table to wet his lips with a sip from its contents. "It would appear that these creatures are drawn to humans, because it would appear that they somehow seek to harvest the hearts of humans." With a few more presses of his fingers, a new set of images flashed across the screen, as documents went streaming past. Several of them were medical reports with Shinra's logo at the top. "As you can see, there have been many such attacks over time, ever since the first known incident when these creatures came to Midgar. In all the cases, the victims who were attacked were brought to us for examination due to the strange nature of their deaths. In all cases, these individuals had died from a total removal of their heart. No outward sign of damage, no sign of mutilation or even of any surgery to remove the heart, as we would do it. The hearts were just simply gone."

"Of course, there is only one known individual who has managed to survive an attack from these creatures. The very first official person on record to have encountered these alien life forms." Hojo's words trailed off, as he looked pointedly at Reno. "Our very own Turk Reno, actually."

"Wait, me?" Reno felt the weight of everyone staring at him now. The redhead looked to Rufus in confusion, then frowned towards Hojo. "I'm the only person who survived? But none of the Turks heard anything about any further attacks – we figured it was just an isolated incident! How is it that we managed not to hear about these other people getting killed by these things?"

"Hm. Procedural errors, perhaps?" Hojo answered vaguely, a pleasant smile fixed on his face. "Naturally, we would have informed the Turks about the situation, if we thought it presented any danger to Midgar. I suppose members of my department were merely caught up in the excitement of our research. My apologies."

Rufus shifted his hand on Reno's shoulder to lure his attention back. "Reno. What happened to you was unfortunate, and we are aware of how much of an effect it has had on you, physically and otherwise. Yet the information that you possess as to how you managed to survive the encounter might very lead us to finding some means to rid Midgar of this nasty infestation. Perhaps you could share with us how you managed to do it?"

Reno shook his head. "I don't know how I survived it. I don't remember much about the creatures, either. The only thing that I really remember is finding them in the sewer, and having them swarm me. Then I woke up in the hospital with a sour-faced doctor feeding me all kinds of grief over what I could and couldn't do anymore."

"You must remember something?" Rufus prompted him, brow furrowing.

"Reno was unconscious when we arrived on the scene, sir." Rude's deep voice piped up from where he stood off to the side. As everyone looked in his direction, he added, "Though we were not the first ones to come upon the scene. Another individual had arrived first, and had engaged the creatures in order to save Reno. He was actually the one who had witnessed what the creatures were attempting to do, sir."

"Who was this witness?" Rufus demanded. "Why wasn't he brought in for questioning on this matter?"

Tseng and Rude answered in unison. "Vincent Valentine, sir."

Reno went paler. He blinked at his partner with eyes that had gone wider, mouthing that name back to Rude to confirm if he'd heard right. Vincent Valentine had saved him from those monsters? Reno shuddered internally. Not that he couldn't appreciate that the mysterious man had saved his hide from certain death, but for the sheer fact that Valentine had been within arm's reach while Reno was unconscious. Frankly, something about the man frightened the hell out of the redhead. A sound of something shattering made him and Rufus look back in Hojo's direction.

The scientist's fingers were still fixed in the shape of his coffee mug, but the ceramic had broken into pieces. Coffee and shards littered the floor at Hojo's feet, as the man stared at Tseng and Rude with their admission. Hojo seemed to realize that he'd drawn their attention. He flashed a strange sort of smile. "Oops. Oh dear." Placing the chunk of broken mug that was still in his grasp down on the table, the scientist absently wiped that hand against the front of his lab coat. "I think that I may have misheard you, Tseng. You claim that Vincent Valentine had been present on the scene of the attack?"

"Yes." Tseng nodded firmly. "He was the one who came to Reno's defense, since both Rude and I were still en route to come to our fellow Turk's aid. Valentine stated to me that he had witnessed these creatures in the act of attempting to remove something from Reno's chest. I can assume, from your report, that they must have been trying to take out his heart."

"There was no mention of Vincent Valentine in the report that was processed." Hojo pointed out, narrowing his eyes behind his glasses. "How was it that the Turks failed to include the detail of his presence in their official report?"

Tseng blinked blandly at the scientist. "It must have been a procedural error. I suppose that we were caught up in worry for our comrade. My apologies."

At that moment, Reno made up his mind that perhaps his superior was a cool guy after all, no matter that Tseng harrowed him on a regular basis. He struggled not to smirk, especially when Hojo went purple in the face from having his own earlier excuse thrown back at him. Rufus seemed to sense the increase in tension between the two men, as the president spoke coolly, "Perhaps both of your departments should review how to be more cautious in filing reports, so that we can avoid these mistakes in the future, gentlemen?"

He turned slightly towards the gathered crowd. "It would seem that we might need to locate Mister Valentine, in order to get more details on this matter. In the meantime, Professor Hojo will be continuing with his experiments upon the captured alien life form. I trust that you will all treat this matter as strictly confidential, meaning that it will stay within these walls and not be made public. We do not want a panic on our hands. However, I expect all of you to be on the alert, in the event that any more of these creatures are sighted. You have Shinra's permission to do whatever is necessary to protect the citizens of this city. While I would prefer for the creatures to be captured so that we can study them and learn more about their nature, you are permitted to destroy them on sight if the situation calls for it. You are all dismissed, with the exceptions of the Turks and yourself, Professor Hojo."

They remained rooted in place as the rest of Shinra's employees filed out of the room, filtering their way out through the door like a receding wave. Elena corralled the last of them together to get them out of there a little faster. Once the last one had exited, the woman closed the door behind the crowd, locking it securely. She waited a few heartbeats before nodding a signal to them.

The very moment that Elena gave a signal that it was all-clear, Reno lurched out of his spot beside Rufus, stalking up to Hojo as the redhead took hold of the scientist by his tie. "What the hell is your deal, man? Why didn't you tell us about all these other attacks?"

Hojo was also abruptly furious, snapping back in the direction of Tseng. "Why wasn't I informed before now that Vincent Valentine was involved in this situation?"

"Gentlemen! Control yourselves!" Rufus snapped loudly, as he pried apart Reno and Hojo with a push from a hand on both men. "Rude, keep the firecracker's temper in check, would you?"

In response, Rude stepped up to slip an arm around Reno's waist, easily dragging the angry redhead back a few feet. He kept the vice of his grip locked around his partner despite how vigorously Reno was squirming to get free. "Lemme go, Rude. I just wanna break his glasses or something, I swear."

"You'll do nothing of the sort." Tseng ordered him firmly. He clasped his hands behind him as he turned to regard Rufus, ignoring Reno's continued efforts to free himself from Rude. "I apologize for Reno's outburst, though I must confess that I can sympathize with his anger. This is a matter that we should have been informed about. These creatures nearly took the life of one of the Turks, and might have succeeded if not for the unexpected intervention."

Hojo fussed with his tie, snorting in derision. "Had you waited with a little more patience than your hyper-active monkey here, then I would have informed you that there was more for me to say. Information of the highest security level, that President Shinra did not want discussed in front of the lower levels. If you think that you can behave yourselves, then I will gladly share with you what I know."

"I'll behave all over your face in about two sec—fuck!" Reno's snarl twisted into a grimace of pain as he sagged in Rude's arm, a hand clapping up against his chest as pain hardened his features.

Rude looked quickly to Tseng. "He needs to sit down."

The lead Turk nodded, pulling over one of the rolling chairs from behind the briefing table. He placed it next to the pair, as Tseng murmured to Reno, "You let yourself get worked up. That's not good for your heart. You need to calm down, Reno. Now sit down and get a hold of yourself."

"Yeah, yeah.." Reno dropped heavily into the embrace of the chair once Rude let him go, bending forward as he continued to clutch at his chest. "I'm working on it, all right? Just have your little talk while I chill."

In his current state, Reno only caught bits and pieces here of what Hojo said. He counted on Rude listening for him, so that if he missed any important details, his partner would fill him in later. Hojo spoke mostly in big scientific words that went over Reno's head as it was. Though he was able to get a general grasp on what the hell the nutcase was explaining to them.

They had been secretly running tests on the captured creature. Hojo seemed like he was about ready to get an erection as he gushed about all his progress with unraveling the mystery behind the little monsters. Apparently they had found a way to attach to the brainwaves of the creature, and had pulled images from the alien's stream of consciousness. Reno looked up at that, his pain subsiding momentarily with this new distraction. "Images? What kind of images?"

"We can't be certain." Hojo shook his head. "I gather that these life forms can only communicate through the mental pictures which they transmit – I must assume that the antennae on the top of their heads keep them linked somehow, sort of like a receiver of sorts. I took the liberty of imprinting some of those images for my report."

"Can I see them?"

The scientist blinked owlishly down at Reno. "You want to see them? I didn't think that you were that interested in these creatures, aside from probably wanting to blow them up."

"Blowing them up still sounds damn good to me, but yeah, I want to see these pictures. I'm just a morbidly curious sort of guy." Reno flashed a lopsided smirk, holding his hand up to take the photographs that Hojo put into the redhead's grasp.

While Hojo continued to speak to the others, Reno took his time with flipping through the photographs, one at a time. Many of these images meant nothing to him. They weren't from any place that he could identify, and Reno had traveled extensively during his lifetime. He paused as he came across a certain photograph, staring down at it. There was nothing more than the image of a key there in the picture. But there was something about seeing the key that struck Reno as familiar somehow. _Key_, he thought to himself. _Not just a key, though. _The_ key. But the key to _what?

Reno decided that he'd think on it, to try and figure it out over time. He shuffled to the next photograph with his mind still lingering on the subject of the key – but this next photograph caused the redhead to freeze in his chair as he studied it in disbelief. Reno's eyes flickered back and forth over the image of the face in the picture, amazed to see it here in such vivid detail, and not simply through the distant fog of his own mind.

"Reno?"

The Turk looked up quickly and found that Rufus and Hojo were looking at him. Rufus tilted his head. "Did you find something in the photographs? You seem alarmed."

Reno shifted his eyes to the side, to look at Rude. Then he shrugged dismissively and handed the stack of photos back over to Hojo. "Nah, nothing. Just a last few twinges of pain is all. Don't let me stop you."

Rude continued to stare at him. Reno could feel the questions radiating silently from his partner. He made a subtle signal with his hand, indicating that they would talk later. For the time being, Reno needed to wrap his mind around everything that was developing, since this mystery had just gotten ten times weirder than before.

* * *

Pulling up in front of Reno's apartment, Rude decided to leave the engine running as he settled the transmission into a parked setting. He blew a stream of breath out in a low sigh, watching the people still moving around the streets at such a late hour, before twisting in his seat to look over at Reno. "You want to tell me what it is that you saw?"

"I can do you one better, partner. I can _show_ you." With a small, smug smirk, Reno reached into an interior pocket of his jacket.

He withdrew a small photograph that was offered over for Rude to take. The man promptly did so, murmuring blandly, "You do realize that you stole this from an official classified file of Shinra, right?"

"It's not stolen. Not really. I'll get it back in there somehow." Reno said dismissively. "This is way too important, and I didn't want that ass Hojo being let in on the situation. Look at the picture, Rude."

Rude slid his sunglasses down on the bridge of his nose, dark eyes blinking languidly as he studied the photograph. "It's a kid. He can't be more than a few years into his teens. I don't recognize him at all." He dropped the picture onto the dashboard in front of Reno. "Obviously, there's something about this kid that is meaningful to you. Do you know him?"

Reno's eyes settled down on the photograph. "Kind of. I know him, but I have never met him. Not personally." He tapped his index finger down on the top of the photo. "This kid has been in some of my dreams, yo. You know that kid that I keep mentioning? This is the one."

That did cause considerable surprise for Rude, as well as confusion. "How is it that this kid can be from your dreams, but was also pulled out of the brain of one of those creatures?"

"That's a damn good question." Reno sank further in the passenger seat, cupping his chin thoughtfully with a hand. "Maybe it's because these creatures attacked me? It might be a side-effect of what they did to me. Or else I might be mentally tied to those things somehow. The fact that I'm on some same wavelength with those things is pretty telling. This kid is significant somehow, I can feel it."

"Do you think that he is a real person?"

"He must be. I didn't dream these monsters up, but they're familiar with him too." Reno slowly shook his head, unable to take his eyes off the picture. "This kid must be out there somewhere. But I get the feeling that these things are afraid of him. If my dreams are any indication, then I think that this kid destroys those monsters."

"That would be a useful ally to have." Rude pointed out. "But we don't have any means to contact him, and we don't even know where to begin looking to do so. Maybe Hojo will manage to collect more significant information from the creature he's experimenting on."

"Maybe. I doubt it." Reno placed his hand over the photograph, sliding the picture back into his possession. He tucked it into that inner pocket again before hurrying to unlatch his safety belt. "Well. That's really all the important information I have to share tonight, partner. It's been one hell of a day. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"

Rude nodded as Reno exited the car. He leaned on his elbow out the window to peer up at the redhead as his partner lingered on the sidewalk. "Get some sleep, Reno. Try not to think about it too much, or else you'll drive yourself crazy. I'll see you in the morning, partner."

Reno's answer was a teasing wink. He flashed a parting salute as Rude drove off, watching as the other Turk disappeared around the corner down the street. The redhead dropped his head back in order to glance up at the moon overhead. It was nice and round – a full moon tonight. The saying went that the full moon would bring out the crazy people, but poor Reno found that the only thing it had delivered him today had been craziness in general. "Man. You need a damned vacation."

He hurried up the stairs and unlocked the door to his place, stepping into the sanctuary of his familiar bachelor pad. Reno let out a wide yawn as he tossed his keys onto the table nearby. The place was a mess, as always. Every now and then, Reno felt slightly guilty about it, and sometimes considered cleaning it all up. Tonight, however, was not one of those times. He kicked his shoes off and left them lying right there in front of the door before making his way towards the kitchen. Having been on his best behavior lately, Reno decided that after the day that he'd had, he deserved the reward of a nice cold beer to take the edge off.

The light streaming out of the refrigerator when he opened it was the only light that Reno operated with. He could find his way around his place in pure darkness. Several notorious evenings of severe drunkenness had made him a professional at navigating around his living space. Reno leaned his weight against the opened door, bracing himself as he took a quick inventory of the items inside the fridge. It was a rather pathetic stock, as far as food went. This didn't bother Reno much, especially since it wasn't food that he was prowling for. He smiled at the selection of bottles on the second shelf and pulled one up.

Reno expertly twisted off the cap of the beer, looking down at it with an expression of pure love. "Oh, you beautiful bottle. I have missed you something fierce." He tipped the bottle back and took a long, satisfying swallow from the contents. It hit a perfect spot inside that had been aching for just one taste of something heavily alcoholic.

Until a familiar voice ruined Reno's perfect moment of communing with his beer bottle, as Vincent Valentine spoke from somewhere on the other side of the opened refrigerator door. "I'm surprised that they're still allowing you to drink, considering what happened to you."

Several things happened simultaneously. A gush of beer came spraying out of Reno's mouth, and the bottle went falling out of his grip to crash to the floor. The redhead reeled in surprise, finding that his body didn't quite know how to keep up with the sudden rush of the emotion, which left Reno sitting down hard on the floor of his kitchen. When his brain caught up with the rest of him, informing him that this surprise visitor didn't provide any immediate threat – or so he hoped – Reno turned a sour glare up from where he had collapsed to the ground, fixing it on the shadowed figure lurking just beyond the refrigerator door. "Goddamnit! Are you trying to kill me off for good?"

"My apologies." Vincent's dull tone made it difficult to decipher if he was sincere or not. "I had forgotten how squirrelly you Turks could be these days."

Reno looked around him with a huff, breath still labored. His right hand was in a puddle of beer. It dripped from his fingers as he raised it off the floor, shaking away the clinging alcohol. _So much for enjoying a tiny slice of heaven_, he thought ruefully. "You can make it up to me by helping me up. That didn't do much for my heart."

A gloved hand swung the refrigerator door forward, closing enough that only a sliver of yellow light remained to light the room as Vincent moved to assist him. Reno tried not to grimace as the one with its golden claws reached out for him to take. He grudgingly took the offer, since his body was still not responding to his mental commands as well as he would have liked. The redhead groaned as Vincent pulled him up on his feet, surveying the mess on the floor between them. "This place is going to smell like a brewery."

"It already smells horrible." Once he was certain that Reno was steady, the enigmatic man let go of the other, those crimson eyes scanning slowly around the apartment. "Fortunately, I could tell immediately that this was your place the moment I entered."

"What can I say? Cleanliness is next to.. to.. something." Reno couldn't quite recall at the moment that mantra Tseng was always trying to ingrain in his head. He reached over to drag one of the chairs away from the small kitchen table close at hand, sitting heavily down on it. "You wanna explain to me why you're here in my apartment, scaring the shit out of me, while I finish getting my heart back down out of my throat?"

Despite the fact that Reno gestured towards the other chair, Vincent seemed to decline the invitation to sit down. He drifted a few steps past the seated Turk, the fabric of his tattered cloak dragging through the mess of beer and shattered glass without him even noticing. Vincent peered out through the small window above the kitchen's sink, looking out into the night. "Yes. I came here because I wanted to find some way to eliminate these creatures, but I cannot do it alone. It occurred to me that if I spoke with one of the Turks – you, more specifically – I might find a better means to achieving my goal of their eradication."

"Sounds good to me." Reno murmured with a shrug. "You got something to say? You think that you'll be able to get rid of those little bastards? Then believe me, I'm all ears."


	3. Chapter 3

No "Other" interactions in this installment. I did incorporate a flashback, however, and that will be represented in _italics_ for the sake of keeping the story organized.

* * *

Rude was seated at the central command station that had been set up for their operations, monitoring the transmissions between the other Turks. They were spread out across the city in order to better supervise the platoons of military that had been scattered throughout Midgar. Their orders had been handed down directly from President Shinra. Overtly, their primary objective was to organize the military squads so that searches could be conducted smoothly through the city limits without drawing any unnecessary attention from the public. Their mission was to locate the creatures that had been staging attacks on the citizens.

Of course, the secondary objective remained active: To locate and apprehend the citizen known as Vincent Valentine for questioning by Shinra authorities.

For the last hour, their efforts had not succeeded in completing either objective. Rude had to wonder if perhaps they might have better spent their time seeking out the source of where these creatures came, rather than waiting for an attack on citizens. He had considered bringing up that concern to Tseng, but their director was far too occupied with the troop movements to spare any time for the bald Turk. And Rude firmly believed that it was unfathomable to question any orders that came directly from President Shinra.

A small sigh escaped him. Rude's forehead furrowed above the top of his sunglasses as he pressed a thumb to rub at the knot located at the center of his eyes. This entire situation was quickly evolving into something that did not sit well with the stoic Turk.

"Thinking too hard there, are ya?"

Rude grunted as a deceptively slender arm snaked around his neck from behind, feeling the unmistakable warmth of Reno as the redhead practically jumped against the back of his chair. For his part, Rude did not get even slightly jostled by the sudden impact, nor did he shrug off the trespassing embrace. He was long since used to his partner's easy affection.

Threads of red hair tickled against his ear as Reno leaned forward, jutting his head up next to Rude's in order to study the monitors in front of the bald Turk. "Huh. Whole lot of nothing out there today, isn't there?"

"It's quiet." Rude agreed at a mutter. "Tseng has had nothing to report since we began. Elena's last report was also uneventful." He paused, easily able to raise his arm despite the obstacle of the redhead clinging to his back to indicate the time on his watch. "However, she is three minutes late in delivering her report."

Reno hummed thoughtfully. He slid down from where he'd been clutching his partner, fisting both hands on his hips as he considered the upturned watch. "Maybe she's just running behind. Or powdering her nose. Or doing.. whatever chicks do. I mean, I'm always late checking in for reports, you know?"

"That's you. Elena is different." Rude lowered his arm, hand falling to tap his index finger against his communicator. "She is as punctual as Tseng. We're all punctual, aside from you." As Reno snorted in response to his point, Rude turned his head to angle a glance up at his partner. "By the way – how are you feeling? You've been out on the field all day. Need a break?"

"Nah." Reno swiped a hand through the air to wave off the offer. "I actually feel really good today. If not one hundred percent, then maybe eighty-five – and the best part about it is that I haven't had even one fit of sleep at all today." The redhead flashed an upturned thumb at his partner. "Maybe things are finally looking up?"

Rude grunted in response. He could envy his partner's ability to see it as a positive side, yet the Turk knew that things had a habit of taking a turn for the worst at any given opportunity. Frowning, he glanced at his watch again. "Five minutes. I'm calling her." With that, Rude gathered up his communicator in one large hand, keying it as his low voice echoed at him from a similar device at Reno's hip. "Command to Elena. Come in Elena. Do you copy?"

They waited for her reply, seconds ticking by like minutes. Reno frowned down at his partner, the same moment that Rude looked up in his direction. Rude repeated his words. Then again, maintaining an outwardly calm tone despite the increasing concern he felt inside.

"Tseng to Command." The voice of their director filled the line. "I am currently engaged at my location and unable to relocate to Elena's area. One of you head over to check on her, copy?"

"Copy that." Rude answered firmly, already moving to rise from his chair. He was stopped by a hand that clapped down on his shoulder, as Reno pressed him back into his seat.

"You stay here, partner. I'll go check on Elena."

Rude hesitated. If Elena were involved in any sort of combat situation, then there was a greater risk of danger. Adding Reno to that equation, without being able to judge if the redhead's unpredictable health wouldn't turn for the worse, was not something Rude felt comfortable with. Still, he knew better than to question his partner. "You sure that you're up to it?"

"Trust me." Reno flashed him a wink, his playfulness tempered by concern for their comrade. "Rescuing damsels in distress is one of my specialties."

* * *

_Between Worlds – Time Unknown_

"_Huh. Another one? I swear that if I even blink a moment too long, another one of you turns up out of nowhere."_

_The drawling voice snared the attention of the petite blonde woman who sat on the side of the curb. Despite the slick pavement from the last rainfall, she did not seem bothered by the wetness that was soaking her backside. In fact, until he had addressed her, the woman's face had been nothing but a bland mask._

_She looked up at him, blue eyes widening faintly as something vague flashed through them. He guessed that it might have been surprise. Those blank doe eyes stared at up at him in silence, and he let the quiet stretch between them until it started to become uncomfortable. Puffing out a breath, he reached up to scratch his fingers through wild tufts of red hair. "Uh. Hey, don't freak out or anything. There's somewhere that I can take you; it's dry and not quite as dangerous. Unless you want to stay out here in the cold and wait for it to rain again?"_

"_No." The woman shook her head, scowling as she stood up. "I was just… I couldn't figure out who I was. Or where I was. Or why I didn't feel as afraid of not knowing those things as I should have been."_

"_It's pretty disorienting, in the beginning." His words were sympathetic, though his tone remained detached. He beckoned her with a gloved hand. "Come on. They're probably expecting you."_

_The blonde moved to follow him. "I guess I should thank you for coming along and rescuing me, shouldn't I?"_

_His nearest green eye shifted from the rain-slicked streets ahead of them to eye her dubiously. "That depends on if you consider it a rescue or not. But I guess that it's better than wandering out here all alone." He pitched thin shoulders in a lazy shrug._

"_Where is it that you're taking me, then?"_

"_To the only place where beings likes us can belong: Organization Thirteen."_

* * *

Tseng stepped out into the adjoining room, a few of Shinra's medical aides filtering out behind him as they moved to other areas of the facility. His face was composed as he focused on the two Turks seated across the hall. Clasping both hands behind him, Tseng crossed over until he was standing practically against their knees, pitching his voice to a low volume to provide them some privacy. "They're just finishing the tests right now. Elena has been coming in and out of consciousness – a very good sign, they've said, considering how long Reno remained unresponsive."

"Have they given you any indication of how long they intend to keep her here?" Rude asked quietly, his head turning back and forth as he kept his attention directed at either end of the hallway to make certain that no one would intrude on their conversation.

"Nothing yet. It's still too early for them to tell anything." The director's dark eyes shifted from the bald Turk, lingering on the more visibly distraught redhead slumped in the chair nearby. Something softened under Tseng's taut features. "Reno. Please stop beating yourself up over it. If not for your timely intervention, Elena might have been much worse off."

Reno kept his blue eyes fixed sullenly towards the tiled floor. Tseng knew better than to press the Turk too much at this time – Reno, when emotional, proved to be unpredictable with his reactions to even the smallest hint of aggravation. He shook his head when the redhead gave no reply, continuing to address them in that low tone. "Hojo should be here soon. He was contacted as the situation with Elena became clear, and requested that nothing be done until he could personally arrive to oversee the tests."

Black sunglasses were unwavering when they locked up in Tseng's direction, Rude's head shining in the overhead lights. "You're okay with that?"

"We have no choice." Tseng spread his hands out at either side. "Professor Hojo is operating directly under the command of the President. The Turks can do nothing but support the scientist in his efforts to uncover this mystery."

"Bullshit."

They both looked in Reno's direction as the redhead finally stirred out of his silence with that snarled curse. Folding his arms together in front of his chest, Reno snapped out hotly, "He's just gonna use her as another guinea pig for another one of his whacko research projects. Are you trying to tell me that we're just supposed to sit back like good little minions while he gets to use Elena for his own twisted devices?"

"I'm not comfortable with it either." Tseng said, his words clipped with anger. Both sets of fingers curled into fists at his sides, dark eyes dropping to the floor in front of him. "Just thinking about the idea of him having Elena left alone with him unattended is enough to make me desire to shoot him. However.." Tseng looked back up at the pair, "the fact remains that our hands are tied on this matter. Anything else on our part would be seen as an open act of hostile insubordination."

Rude tried to dissolve some of the tension of his two comrades. He adjusted the sit of his sunglasses. "Hojo will probably want a report as to what happened out on the field. Perhaps we should correlate our experiences together in order to make it as coherent as possible."

"Of course. You're correct, Rude. It is important that we try to be as detailed as possible, for the sake of Elena. If we leave out anything vital that might provide a clue in this situation, then it may end up making it more difficult to help her."

Tseng gripped his chin in his hand, thinking back to the entire course of events. "Both Rude and myself were occupied elsewhere. It was only you, Reno, who was initially on the scene of the attack. In all this distraction over Elena, I haven't even asked you yet what took place. What's your report?"

"Yeah… the scene.." Reno scowled, as his mind turned back to the memories of hours before.

* * *

_Midgar; One Hour Prior_

_"Elena?"_

_Reno felt his heart hammering in his chest at an alarming rate. It made his entire ribcage feel as if it were on fire, yet that dull ache was nothing compared to the adrenaline of his growing panic the moment he arrived on the scene. His fingers clenched convulsively around the handle of his mag-rod, weapon already drawn and ready as Reno's eyes swung wildly around the area._

_The scene was eerily quiet, despite the scattering of Shinra military personnel that littered the grounds around him. Reno knelt down beside one of the fallen soldiers, where the man lay motionless with the visor of his helmet buried in the dirt. He took hold of the guy by his shoulder, grunting with effort as he flipped him over onto his back. "Hey! You alive in there?"_

_The redhead was thankful that his fingers were steady as he quickly worked the latches of the soldier's helmet to get it open. He knew that he should have been gentler, but frankly his haste wouldn't allow for such consideration. Reno yanked the helmet up the second it came loose, tossing it over his shoulder without even seeing where it landed._

_As he finally caught sight of the man's face, he lurched backwards like a startled feline, nearly losing his balance where he'd crouched. "Shit…"_

_It was obvious, just at a glance, that there was no saving this soldier. Reno grimaced as he studied the fallen man. He felt at the man's neck for any trace of a pulse, more out of training than for hope that he might find anything there. As he waited for a sign of life, he took a closer look at the man's face._

_Reno had seen his share of dead bodies. Hell, he'd even created a fair share of them throughout his career. He'd become familiar enough with them to know that they didn't normally look like this one did. The soldier's face wasn't twisted with pain, or stretched with fear, like most people were when they died. No, this guy had a face that was blank. The eyes that stared up blindly at Reno weren't just lacking the light of life. That gaze was _devoid_. Like the lights inside had turned off even before the man was snuffed out._

"_The hell…?" Breathing out the words, Reno pushed up to stand, twisting slowly around. A breeze blew across his face, just a soft sigh of the wind answering his question._

_Then he perked up as his ears detected another sound. A familiar sound. It was a sound that lightened some of the lead-heavy dread that had frozen Reno's limbs. The sharp rapport of gunfire. The redhead surged forward in that direction, ignoring the protests of his heart in his chest. He couldn't allow it to effect him. Not at this moment, when he desperately needed that last ounce of strength for what he knew was coming._

_Reno rounded the corner so fast that his ponytail whipped the air, coming upon where Elena was boxed in on three sides by the exact monsters that they'd been searching for. "Elena!"_

"_Reno." The woman called back, her breathing labored as she continued to shoot at the creatures that came close enough to reach for her. "Thank God – a little help?"_

_Some of the yellow eyes of the creatures turned his way, but Reno found that he was not afraid of them now. In fact, the sight of them just pissed him off even more. He thought back to the soldier's face that he had seen. These little bastards had caused all of this trouble for him. Without wasting another moment, Reno growled in his throat and charged into the fray of black bodies, his mag-rod sparking with deadly accuracy as he cut through a wave of critters. "Yeah. You tiny bitches like the taste of that? Not so tough when you don't catch a guy by surprise, are you?"_

_He felt a chill bleeding through the sleeve of his jacket. Reno saw that one of the creatures had taken hold of his arm. Baring his teeth in a flash of feral anger, the redhead roughly swung the creature through the air to shake it off of him. "Elena – the others are gonna be here soon. Just a few minutes more."_

"_I.. don't know, Reno. There may be a problem before they get here."_

"_What's that?" Reno huffed out while in the process of stomping on the head of one of the fallen creatures. He paused as he heard an audible clicking behind him. The redhead swiveled towards where Elena stood, eyes widening as he saw the female Turk firing impotently towards the creatures._

_The blonde caught his eye over the swarm of monsters between them, and he saw the faint trace of a wry smile ghost over her face. "Heh.. Out of ammo."_

"_Elena.." Reno lunged towards the woman, grunting as he found his progress hindered by several sets of grabbing limbs clinging to his body. "Elena, just run!"_

_Elena searched for an opening in the closing swarm as her comrade struggled towards her. She feinted quickly left, then made a quick dash to the right as the creatures surged in that false direction. However, her efforts proved in vain, when Elena found her forward momentum backfiring against her. Shadowy limbs had snared hold of her legs, and with a sharp cry of alarm, Elena went tumbling down into a mass of blackness._

_A growl of rage choked out of Reno's throat as he saw the woman go down, watching the blanket of inky blackness closing over her. His slender limbs jerked with great force against the grips on him, shouting hoarsely, "Fuckin'…. Let me go!"_

_He thought nothing of the fact that the creatures released him, just as he'd told them to do. Reno's focus was locked on that undulating pile that he now went running at with full-speed. He glimpsed a spark of reddish light somewhere in that blackness, and it didn't take much thought to guess what they were doing to his fellow Turk._

_Reno threw himself on top of the moving pile, yanking at shadowy bodies with his free hand in an attempt to claw his way to Elena. The other was slamming his mag-rod down on them with brutal force. "Get off her – STOP!"_

_His desperate fingers caught hold of fabric and Reno yanked roughly upwards. He said a silent prayer of thanks for the resilience of their uniforms, considering that Elena's jacket managed not to rip despite the opposite forces working against it. Reno's arm fired straight down, until he felt the soft warmth of Elena's figure being enveloped by it, the redhead clutching the woman up against his chest. He swiped his weapon into the fray around them, eyes wildly moving._

_Then Reno realized that the creatures were no longer attacking him, nor were they going after Elena. In fact, they had drifted away just past the reach of his mag-rod. Reno's anger was swept up in a wave of confusion as he looked over at the little monsters. Their yellow eyes were fixed on him, expectant and docile as a canine awaiting a command._

'_Waiting for a command?', Reno thought to himself, 'Where the hell did that thought come from?'_

_He pointed his mag-rod out towards them, the tip of it crackling menacingly. "Back off."_

* * *

"And what happened then?" Tseng prompted him quietly, when Reno's voice trailed off into a brooding silence.

Reno looked up at his director, eyes haunted. "Well, they.. They listened. You guys arrived a few minutes later – you know the rest."

The three men were silent. Tseng looked away as there was some activity down the hall that broke the shocked quiet that had descended over their little area. He spied a flurry of white lab coats coming from that direction. "It would appear that Hojo has finally arrived." Both of his underlings were given a subtle warning glance, before Tseng turned to greet the approaching cluster of scientists. He addressed the lead professor as soon as the man came in range. "Professor Hojo."

"Ah, the Turks." Hojo's thin lips quirked faintly, either in distaste or amusement. "I understand that another one of your people has fallen victim to an attack."

"Indeed." Tseng nodded. "Elena, however, appears to be far better off than Reno had been."

Hojo blinked at them, curious. "Oh ho? And do you have any thoughts as to why?"

"They were chased off before they could sustain the same amount of damage to her as they had done to Reno, Professor." Tseng said with a shrug. "Our response time was much faster this time around."

"What interrupted them?"

"I did." Reno said tersely, blue eyes fixed on the scientist, as if daring him to make something out of it that could allow the redhead to become hostile.

Hojo made a gesture, a couple of the scientists that flocked him lifting up their clipboards. They were poised to write even while Hojo questioned Reno. "A very interesting achievement, Turk Reno! This could be the key that unlocks understanding as to how we might conquer these creatures. How precisely did you manage to stop them from removing the woman's heart, and avoid your own demise at their hands?"

Reno hesitated. Their eyes were fixed on him, waiting for his answer. He wasn't entirely certain that he wanted to share his methods with the likes of Hojo. "Well, I.."

"Reno scared them off." Rude spoke up suddenly at his side. He ignored the subtle glances that his two comrades turned his way. "He arrived just when the creatures were overcoming Elena. I think he said earlier that he had gone running at them, screaming and waving his arms, and it somehow managed to startle them off."

Hojo blinked. "Really?"

Rude adjusted his sunglasses, gruff. "Well, I'm sure you're familiar with how loud Reno can be, Professor. Perhaps it was sufficient enough to scatter them in their surprise. And our arrival as backup may have prompted them to decide to escape before we could destroy them. You said before that you believed the creatures to be sentient. They may not have known what to do in that situation."

"Agreed." Tseng said with a slow nod. "And Reno's flashy entrances tend to come as volatile as a hurricane. The element of surprise was undoubtedly on his side in this situation, as I understand it."

"I see…" Hojo practically pouted with disappointment. "Well, I suppose it can't be helped. The Turks are not known for their insight." He waved the scientists around him towards the door of Elena's room. "Let us speak with the woman and see if we can't discover more. We of course need to run some tests, just to be certain that nothing is overlooked."

Hojo and his scientists left the company of the three Turks without even a parting word. Rude watched them go, nostrils flaring as he cocked his head sharply to either side, cracking the bones in his neck. It was his usual way of expressing his disapproval. They waited until the coast was clear before exchanging looks.

"Uh.. You guys want to clue me in here on what that was all about?"

Tseng frowned at Reno. "I would think it were obvious. We can assume that if Hojo had any idea that you had managed such a feat as controlling these things, he would immediately take you into custody. There would be tests upon tests. We would be down two members, since we can't know for sure when Elena will be released."

"I don't trust him." Rude stated with a shrug, as if that were a good enough reason for his behavior.

Their director turned to the door of Elena's room, Tseng clasping his hands together at the base of his back. "Keep the truth of the event to yourself, Reno. This is something that the Turks could use, without that man's interference."

Reno looked slowly back and forth between the two of them, his face touched with awe as he registered their words. Then his mouth was transformed into his usual devilish grin. "Aw. Are you guys sure that it's not just because you're worried about me? I'm touched, fellas."

"Don't get cocky, Reno." Tseng warned him in a dire tone. "I'm not in the mood. Consider yourselves dismissed, gentlemen. I intend to remain here until there is further news on Elena."

"Understood, sir." Rude stood up from his chair, a broad hand winding itself around Reno's nearest arm. He hauled his partner up to his feet as he sensed that the redhead's expressions of playful humor would not sit well with their superior. "Come on, Reno. Let's go."

"I'm comin', I'm comin'."

* * *

"I am, you know."

Reno looked up at his partner from across the table. They had left Shinra's headquarters and ended up in one of the small dive restaurants on the east side of the city. With consideration for Reno's low budget, it was one of the few establishments that could offer decent food for a decent price. Reno paused in the act of stuffing another clump of rice into his mouth, voice muffled around his food. "You're what, partner?"

"Worried." Rude had not yet touched his own plate. His elbows were propped on the table at either side of his bowl, gloved fingers laced together as he brooded over the top of his forgotten dinner. "About you. And all of this situation."

The honest admission from his taciturn partner was enough to leave Reno speechless. He thickly swallowed that mouthful of food, taking that time to think of what to say. "Well. You shouldn't worry. I'm pretty much convinced that I'm immortal at this point. Explosions, crashes, mortal injuries, beasties of all sizes and types, vengeful girlfriends – I've survived it all so far, yo?"

Rude's hands lowered, pushing his bowl away from him. He reached up to remove his sunglasses, dark eyes firm on the redhead, and Reno knew that whenever Rude took those things off, the impending conversation was destined to be serious. "This is different. You have survived all of those things because I am usually there with you to guard your back. Whatever the threat is, we can work together to eliminate it."

"You've never helped me 'eliminate' my vengeful girlfriends." Reno pointed out without much force in his tone.

Continuing on as if the redhead hadn't spoken, Rude gestured at him, sunglasses flashing where they were clutched in his hand. "I can't help you with this. Ever since the attack, all of these things that have been happening with you, I've been unable to do anything to assist you. I can't make you better. I can't prevent you from being plagued by these dreams of yours. And now, on top of everything else, I'm worried what would happen to you if Hojo or the president found out about what you did today."

Reno frowned, looking down from his partner's face as he jabbed at the contents of his bowl with his fork. "Maybe it was nothing. I might have just been lucky."

"You really believe that?"

"No." Reno sighed, anguish briefly twisting his features. "But it really weirded me out, yo. It's all so crazy – I've given up trying to figure it all out. As soon as I think I've got a grasp, something else happens that sends me for a loop. It… it's driving me out of my mind."

Rude nodded sympathetically. "Your performance has suffered. Your attitude has become worse than it's ever been. If things keep up as they are, then odds are that one of our next jobs is going to end up being your last. You can't keep doing this while things are still this way."

"Maybe you're right. But there isn't much that I can do about that, now is there?"

"Not you, no." Rude eased back in his chair, thoughtful. He slid his sunglasses back over his eyes. "But there's something that I can do about it. For your own good, and for my peace of mind."

Reno carefully lowered his fork down, searching those sunglasses for some sign of Rude's intent. "…What are you talking about, partner?"

Without giving the redhead an answer, Rude fished his wallet out of his back pocket. He tossed a few gils down on the tabletop, more than enough to handle their bill. Reno watched him like a hawk, still expecting an answer. Yet Rude had made his decision, and was not going to let the redhead's reaction to it cause a scene in the middle of the restaurant. That explosion would come later. "Take it easy, partner. Get some rest tonight."

"Hey, Rude—" Reno was not content to simply let the other Turk walk out without letting him know what was going on. He might have been thick on some issues, but the redhead was also wise enough to know when something was up. His question was interrupted, though, as Rude stopped beside him.

The bigger Turk's gloved hand settled on the top of Reno's head, and the surprise of the action managed to freeze the redhead in place. Rude ruffled his fingers fondly through those wild tufts, murmuring quietly, "Just trust me, Reno. I'll see you later." His fingers lingered, just short of a moment too long, before Rude dropped his hand away and walked to the door without a backwards glance at the redhead's questioning stare.

* * *

"Your apartment looks worse than it did the other night."

Vincent had found Reno's apartment to be even worse for wear than normal, when he finally returned to the redhead's place. It didn't take him long, despite the mess, to find where the Turk was. He drifted into the living space, moving through the apartment without a sound, until he came to stand beside where Reno lurked.

The redhead was seated on the floor in front of his couch, which had been overturned at some point. Reno's knees were drawn up, wrists draped casually over the tops of them as he tossed a glare up at the intruder. "Are you going to shoot me if I tell you to fuck off?"

"I don't think so." Vincent's crimson eyes blinked down at him. "It's never happened to me before. You might be the first person who would be brave enough to try."

Reno scoffed darkly. "Yeah.. Maybe I'll try my luck later."

Gold claws took a careful grip on the edge of an overturned wooden chair, Vincent flipping it slowly back onto its legs. "Should I ask what happened in your apartment?"

"Me. I happened. Well, my temper happened." The redhead turned that icy glare down to the tops of his knees, thumbs rubbing briskly against the fabric of his pants. "I kinda trashed the place. Then it wore me out, and I've been sitting here ever since, trying to work up the energy to continue with the other rooms."

The revelation didn't seem to surprise Vincent much. He stepped around, keeping his eyes trained on Reno as if the redhead were a wounded animal in the wild as he cautiously sat down on the chair. "What made you upset?"

Reno threw his hands up in the air. His sarcasm was biting. "Oh, I don't know. I can't for the life of me think of one bad thing happening in my life right now. Months ago, I nearly get killed by some little sewer monsters. Then, after that, I end up being physically fucked up from the event, which in turn affects every aspect of my life. One of my comrades ends up getting attacked and put in the hospital. And then – the best part! – my damned partner somehow makes up his mind to go over my head to my superiors and get me removed from active duty!"

"Your partner? They let you go?"

"Medical leave. Fucking medical leave." Reno shook his head roughly in a blur of red. "That sonofabitch went behind my back and had them put me on medical leave!"

Vincent met those words with silence. The claws of his hand clicked together as he searched for something to say. Finally, he murmured, "It… sounds like you've had a rough week. But it isn't very fair to take it out on your furniture, is it?"

"Shit. Shit!" Reno swore quietly, mind apparently still stuck on his tangent. He rocked his head backwards, thumping it against the couch behind him in an effort to release some of the frustration fogging up his brain. "Now I get you dropping by again. All that's left now is for some freak accident to blow my dick off."

Silence. Vincent watched the Turk pound his head against the couch a few more times, until it seemed that Reno had the self-abuse and vulgar language out of his system. "..Are you finished?"

"Yeah." Reno nodded, a heavy sigh slipping out of him. "Anything more is just going to tire me out further. You came here because…?"

"I was curious as to if my advice to you from my last visit proved useful."

The redhead grimaced. "Yeah. Yeah, it did. Frighteningly so. That raises a few more questions, though."

"You want to know what made me prompt you to try communicating with the creatures?"

"Precisely." Reno nodded up at the shrouded figure. "I didn't think it would really work, just talking to them. But I did it, to try and save Elena. And it worked. The fucking things scattered just like I told them to. So how did you know enough to even make a suggestion like that?"

Vincent didn't answer at first. He rose and moved a few steps away. Reno watched him creep through his apartment, before the man turned back in his direction. "You weren't the first or last person to be attacked by these things. And despite what Shinra may believe, you aren't the only person to have survived. I actually had saved a civilian previous to your encounter in the sewers. That's how I knew what to expect from these beings."

"Really? Another survivor? Bet Hojo would sell his left arm to get his mitts on that person."

Vincent nodded firmly. "Precisely why I have not allowed Shinra to find out about it. I have personally been working with this victim; with his assistance, I have come to understand more about how these creatures operate."

"So you've been needling him for information, while also trying to weasel the facts out of me, too." Reno smirked. "Those are classic Turk tactics. Can't really ever shake that training, can you?"

He wasn't surprised that his comments were ignored. Vincent didn't even address the words, saying instead, "I will let you meet him, if you would like. If you are really off active duty, then I suppose that you will find plenty of free time on your hands, Reno."

"Guess so." The redhead reached one of his hands up to his mouth, absently chewing on the tip of his thumb. A fresh rush of anger coursed through him. "Goddamnit. Why the hell did Rude have to go and do something so shitty and underhanded like that, without even telling me first?"

Vincent's head cocked to the side. "Classic Turk tactics."

"Okay – time to press my luck: Fuck you, Valentine."

"That wasn't so bad. Are you going to come with me, or should I come back at another time?"

"Let me get dressed, man." Reno pushed up from the floor, limbs moving gingerly as he discovered himself to still be sluggish from his exertions throughout the apartment. He scratched at the back of his head as he looked around at the disaster. "Uh.. as soon as I find out where I threw my clothes."

"No rush. I anticipate that it will be a while, considering the mess. I'll be waiting on the roof when you're finished."

"Sure." Reno turned his back on the other man, bending as he began to sort through the piles of stuff littering the apartment around him. "Though, you probably might—" Reno twisted around.

Vincent had already vanished. The only sign of his departure was the weak rustle of the blinds pulled up over Reno's open window. With a sharp blink, the redhead finished lamely to the empty air, "—want to use the door? Or not. Whatever." As he unearthed one of his shoes, Reno shook his head, figuring that it was going to end up being a long ass night.

* * *

After a lengthy search to unearth clothes that looked presentable for public, the unlikely pair arrived at their destination, Vincent having taken the lead. Reno looked around them with mild confusion, and not just a little distaste. "The Slums? Of course you couldn't have any contacts in places that are cleaner, right?"

"I highly doubt that these creatures care how much wealth their victims have." Vincent stated muffledly, eyes searching the dark shadows of the people moving around them. "These people, more than anyone, make excellent targets for those creatures. They are vulnerable here; no one is going out of their way to offer protection to these citizens."

"No one except you, right? That's mighty heroic, Valentine."

"Heroism has nothing to do with it." The enigmatic man shook his head, inky black hairs spilling across his pale face. "I have had the most success encountering those creatures in this location. It was here that I found them for the first time; they like this area the most, for the reasons I said before."

"Easy prey." Reno nodded. It made sense. Shinra might have stretched its resources to search throughout Midgar, but the redhead knew that there had been an awful lack of attention to the Slums. "Does this guy know that we're coming?"

"He is used to me dropping in unannounced."

"Well. Just so long as he doesn't try to blow our heads off or anything."

Vincent snorted out a breath that for anyone else could have been mistaken for a laugh. "I doubt that. He's not exactly a combative individual."

Reno quirked an eyebrow. "Oh? One of those peace-loving flower types?"

"Not quite. But definitely a pacifist."

"Great. Sounds like he's a useful guy to have around, yo."

They rounded a corner, Reno's ears perking as he heard the faint sound of music being played somewhere nearby. His eyes swung automatically to locate the source. Seated in front of one of the ramshackle buildings was a young man playing a guitar. He was quite engrossed in his playing, only looking up when Vincent's shadow settled over him. The guy's head raised, blue eyes blinking warily at the two of them. Then, as recognition dawned, he smiled weakly at Vincent. "Mister Valentine. This is unexpected."

"I'm sorry to call upon you so late." The shrouded figure twisted, gesturing towards his redheaded companion. "There was someone that I wanted to introduce you to. Reno, this is Dyme. Dyme, this is Reno."

Reno watched as the guy placed his guitar aside, rising to greet him. The guy's hand was reaching out politely. In those few moments, Reno had managed to get a better look at the man. Wheat blond hair, a thin figure, definitely a pushover in any physical fight. As they clasped hands, Dyme froze as if he were a deer realizing that they were facing a predator. "It's you!"

Reno quickly jerked his hand back as he eyed the other man warily. Vincent glanced slowly back and forth between the two of them. "That wasn't a reaction that I expected. You both know each other already?"

"No." Reno shook his head.

"Yes." Dyme nodded vigorously.

"Which is it?" Crimson eyes stared at them blankly.

Dyme tore his eyes reluctantly away from Reno, an expression of confused awe on his face. "This guy looks just like the one that was in a few of my dreams, Vincent. You remember that I told you about the cloaked figures?"

"Cloaked figures?" Reno peered closely at the man. "With the hoods and the silver zippers?" His hands moved through the air, shaping the items just as he'd seen them.

"In the white castle." Dyme was nodding his confirmation.

Reno reached up to scratch at his chin. "Now it's my turn to be confused. Apparently I'm having the same dreams as a complete stranger. This situation just keeps getting more fucked up as time passes."

"It does seem bizarre," Vincent murmured, "but I can't say that it's unexpected. Dyme, if you'd kindly let us come in, I am certain that we can unravel this puzzle together."

"Oh. Oh, yes, of course." The young man wrapped his fingers around the neck of his guitar, carrying it with him as he turned to push open the door to his ramshackle house.

Both Vincent and Reno followed him inside, the latter casting a disdainful glance around at the interior. Deep down inside, he was thanking whatever merciful deity had given him the opportunity to get wrapped up with the Turks all those years ago. If not for a steady salary, Reno knew that there was a high chance he would have ended up in just such a place – if not already in a shallow pit somewhere.

He watched as the other two men settled at a small wooden table towards the back of the house, though Reno really wasn't sure that it was even large enough to earn that kind of description. In a glance, he was able to see everything there was to see in Dyme's place. Vincent looked back in his direction as the redhead lingered nearby. "Reno, I am sure that Dyme would not mind if you sat with us."

"No, not at all!" Dyme waved both hands hurriedly in front of him, still keeping his attention divided towards Reno with an obviously nervous air. "You're more than free to sit wherever you like. Really!"

"I'll stand for now." Reno drawled. "No offense to you guys, but I'm kinda eager to hurry up and get this little meet and greet over with."

"Very well." Vincent didn't argue with the Turk, shifting his focus instead towards the conversation. "If you both are open to it, I would like to explain what I have deduced so far concerning this entire situation." When neither man protested, he continued. "We are quite aware that all of this began when these unknown creatures surfaced here in Midgar. What neither of you may be aware of is the fact that this phenomenon seems to be restricted solely to this city. I have been in constant communications with my contacts outside of the city limits, and there have been no reports of these entities beyond our borders."

"So it's isolated. That's a bit of good news, at least." Reno piped in.

"Indeed. I had initially worried that this would spread out of hand, perhaps even becoming an issue that would plague the entire planet. Yet it seems that we have been lucky so far. Whether it is their intention or not, these beings have stayed within a set perimeter. However, this means that the area they are infesting is not overly large, and is heavily populated with potential victims. Their attacks were sporadic, at first – yet as time passes they are becoming more frequent."

"You… think that they are going to come back?" Dyme asked in a trembling voice.

"I can't say for certain. These creatures are puzzling to me." Vincent scowled at the tabletop. "They seem to be working with some semblance of organization, some sense of purpose. And yet at the same time it seems that they are following no pattern whatsoever and might be operating simply on random chance. It led me to wonder if perhaps they were taking orders from something else – some leading force that was directing them. It was just a theory, really, but I decided that it could be put to the test."

"That's why you had me try to talk to them." The redhead murmured, before snorting. "Here I thought that you'd had some sort of cosmic insight, but the whole time you were just playing off a hunch. Thanks for using me as bait for your curiosity, Valentine."

"I wasn't using you. I simply knew that the chances were high that you would encounter them again, considering how your team has been at the forefront of dealing with these creatures. It was merely an idea that I thought I could suggest to you – and it worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah, it worked." Reno admitted grudgingly.

"It was only through speaking with Dyme that I even came up with the idea." Vincent explained as he looked at the young man. "He was quite forthcoming in describing his dreams and it struck me that in those dreams there was some connection with those entities."

"But my dreams have been vague." Dyme sighed. "I've been trying to remember as much about them as I can to help Mister Valentine. It's like I'm watching someone else's life happen through a thick veil. Is that like what you're experiencing, Mister Reno?"

"No. My dreams are nothing like that. Nothing vague about them at all, yo." Reno was shaking his head. "When I dream, it's vivid as hell, like I am living in the moment, rather than just watching from afar. I feel less like a spectator and more like a participant."

"So it's different from me? Why do you think that is, Mister Valentine?"

Vincent hesitated. "I have given that some thought as well. The only feasible explanation that I can come up with is that Reno has a stronger connection to these creatures than you do, Dyme. Of course, this may be due to how long each of you was exposed to their power. You, Dyme, had not suffered their powers for very long before I arrived and rescued you. It was merely by chance that I came upon Reno. I can't say for sure how long they'd had to focus their power on him."

He considered Reno a long moment, before adding. "There's also the fact that Reno has an intensely strong personality and qualifies very high on the list of stubborn individuals who I have known. It might just be that his heart is unnaturally strong."

"I'd like to think that you're complimenting me, Valentine." Reno smirked upon hearing the man's opinion of his nature. "I'm one hell of a handful as I am now and I am bound to be one hell of a handful in any other state of being. But you've both got one thing very wrong in all your deductions.."

"Oh?" Vincent continued to peer at him. "How so?"

"These aren't just dreams. I'd know if it was just a handful of empty dreams that were plaguing me." Reno came over to stand beside the table, rapping his knuckles against the top of it. "This shit is making me fall asleep at any given time – it isn't just when I go to bed at night. It's like I'm fighting to keep conscious. Like—"

"Like someone else is in control sometimes?" Dyme interrupted.

"Yeah. Like that. But it isn't like I'm sharing my body – that's entirely my own. And I don't have anyone else in my head talking to me. It's not like I'm possessed or any shit like that. It's just like… like… hell.."

"You're having to share being yourself with someone else."

Reno nodded to Dyme. "That's exactly it. And I for one am not good with sharing, so that just pisses me off even more about this whole situation."

Vincent seemed to be taking the time while they spoke to absorb their words and the meanings behind them. Finally, he shook his head. "That just leads me to even more questions. This puzzle keeps twisting deeper and deeper, the more that I discover. I need to think on this more." He pushed himself up from the table. "Dyme, please excuse us. I think we've talked enough for tonight. My primary goal tonight was simply to introduce the two of you, which I have done. Thank you, again, for your time."

"Oh, of course. Anytime, Mister Valentine." Dyme rose with the other man, smiling faintly. "You saved my life, after all – I owe you for that. I'm just glad that you brought Mister Reno to meet me. It's nice to know that I'm not the only person going through this."

Reno blandly regarded the blond's smiling face. "Yeah.. Maybe we'll start a club or something."

He didn't even bother with any parting words, nor did Reno stick around long enough to hear what Vincent said to the young man after that. The redhead simply went back outside and into the open air, hands sinking deep into his pockets as Reno waited outside for Vincent to emerge, feeling even grumpier for some unknown reason than before they'd come here.

"You could have been more polite."

Reno didn't even spare the black-haired man a glance, even after that reprimand. "Polite isn't my strong suit. Besides, why the hell should I go out of my way to pretend that I care about some dumb kid's feelings?"

Vincent began to lead the way from Dyme's shack, as the sullen Turk tailed him. "That 'kid' is in the same situation that you are. I had figured that you would be more sympathetic, or at least a little interested in speaking with him, considering that connection."

"Look.." Reno slid his hands quickly from his pockets. He snatched a hold on Vincent's arm, firmly tugging the other man to a halt, the redhead's eyes simmering with anger. "I'm not here to make friends, okay? I'm here to find out what the hell is happening with me. And I could give less than two shits that your little friend got caught up in this situation. All that I want to do is get it solved so that I can go back to my job, my life and my deviant habits. If all that this guy can tell me is that we're both having dreams about the same stuff, then that really isn't helping me obtain that goal. So he's useless to me."

"Are you so sure about that?" Vincent did not fight free of the Turk's grip. Instead, he stood there fixing Reno with a level look. "Whether you can appreciate it or not, Turk Reno, both you and Dyme have become wrapped up in a great mystery. Only the two of you – and perhaps, now, your other Turk friend, are the people who have been touched by these creatures and somehow lived through the experience. No one else in this entire city can possibly identify with your situation, except through a secondhand observation. Not even your Turks are able to help you in this – are they?"

Reno scowled at those words, knowing that Vincent had a valid point. He thought back to the conversation he'd had with Rude at the restaurant. His partner had been radiating frustration for the past few months and Rude had even lamented about the inability to help Reno deal with all of this. The redhead abruptly released the other man. "I hate this. All of this."

"You aren't the only one. Try not to forget that." Vincent turned away from the redhead. "I would recommend that you at least make the attempt to speak with Dyme some more on your own. It might be therapeutic to share your experiences with someone who can understand them better."

"Yeah. Maybe. We'll see. But I doubt it." Reno watched as the cloaked man broke away from him to head down the road. He knew that he was expected to find his way back to his apartment on his own from this point. Exhaustion settled heavily on his shoulders. If he was actually considering taking advice on reaching out for new friends from Vincent Valentine, then Reno knew that he was definitely in need of several hours of refreshing sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

_+++Static+++_

_The World That Never Was, Time Unknown_

_Roxas was venting his frustration in the best way possible. Running through dim-lit streets under a sky of eternal night, hunting down any Heartless that he could attack and destroy. He channeled everything into their destruction; they had become his only outlet for letting off steam. The creatures received the business end of his Keyblade against their bodies, which erased their very existence. He wasn't sure if he had ever been prone to such violent habits before - but then again, wherever he was before this probably wasn't in this place, with these people._

_One of which was trespassing on his exercise right now as a silent observer._

_Once Roxas had dispatched the last creature, the teen stalked over in the direction of his witness. He let his irritation and anger stamp a clear picture on his face as he glared up at where the redhead sat. "I thought I told you that I wanted to be alone?"_

_"I got bored." Axel cocked his head to the side, fixing Roxas with a feline slant of green eyes. The man had planted himself on the edge of a rooftop, seemingly immune to any thoughts of potential danger as he dangled a foot lazily down the length of the wall. He had settled back with his weight on an arm. Roxas could only identify that kind of pose as 'lounging'. "You didn't say that I could join you, so I was stuck doing the next best thing - watching you bust some heads."_

_"Of course I'm not going to invite you. I'm clearing this territory right now." Roxas pointed out with mild exasperation, the teen shaking his head before turning his back on the redhead again. "I don't need any help."_

_He was stopped in his tracks by the amused drawl of the other man, as Axel called after him. "Sounds to me like you're just afraid of me showing you up."_

_Roxas swiveled stiffly around to gape incredulously up at the redhead. "What?"_

_Axel lifted up the gloved hand not supporting his weight, fingers curling over as he gave them an indifferent study. "Just saying, is all. You sound so protective of the scene, it's like you're afraid that I'll somehow manage to flatten more Heartless than you." His face turned down towards Roxas now, a teasing smirk forming across Axel's mouth. "Not that I can blame you. You haven't had much time for practice compared to me, and I'm obviously an expert."_

_"That's total nonsense." Roxas scoffed. "I don't need any practice in order to beat your numbers, Axel."_

_"Yeah?" The redhead chuckled quietly as he eased upright. Axel braced both hands on either side of the roof. He jumped down from above, landing lightly with a quiet jingle of the charm hanging from the zipper of his coat, in order to stand in front of Roxas. Deceptively thin arms folded across his chest as he smirked down at the teen. Axel was even deliberately standing straighter than usual in order to make their difference in height that much more obvious. "Why don't you prove it? A little wager. If I get more Heartless than you do, then you have to stop being so difficult with me and end this little tantrum so that we can head to the tower and enjoy some ice cream. If you get more, then I won't follow you anymore and you can have all your angst sessions completely to yourself. Sound fair?"_

_"Fine. You're on." Roxas jabbed a finger against Axel's chest, sporting his own smirk. "Just try not to feel too heartbroken when you lose."_

_Axel rolled his eyes, both hands rising up to call forth his weapons, a swirl of blackness masking them before his chakrams materialized. "Boy, Roxas, you're real funny there. Let's get started, partner."_

_Roxas swung up his Keyblade. "Don't call me 'partner', Axel. We're having a competition." Then the teen broke away in a run from where Axel was standing, seeking out the next batch of Heartless that they could settle their contest with._

* * *

_The tip of the Keyblade landed heavily against the surface of the street, Roxas' chest panting heavily for breath as he stared around him in sheer disbelief, and not just a little disappointment. "But.. it... I call foul!"_

_"Foul?" Axel surveyed his handiwork with pride, examining the scorched ring around them where the heat of flames had incinerated the last trace of the Heartless that had surrounded the pair. One of the points on his left chakram still had a flame dancing on it. Axel brought it up towards his face, relishing his victory as he blew it out. "You can't call 'foul' now that you lost."_

_"No one said that you could use area effect attacks." Roxas protested. "You didn't even let them get close to enough to fight you one-on-one. You just blew them all up."_

_"You really think that I'd let those things get close to me? They might mar my handsome face, you know? Besides.. you never put any rules in place before we started, so I was free to use whatever methods I wanted."_

_Roxas scowled, realizing that the redhead had a point there. He had been soundly defeated and the guy had not even bothered to really lift a finger. "Fine. Whatever. You win then." He grumbled under his breath, then searched around them with a scowl. After that little contest, it seemed that they were out of Heartless for the time being. "Well. Nothing left to do out here now."_

_"Nope." Axel's weapons vanished in a wisp of smoke, the redhead stretching an arm up next to them. A portal opened up beside them on the street. "It's getting late – looks like I'll have to unwind another day. Might as well go back to headquarters. The head chiefs will probably want to hold another session of cooking up schemes. Race you there?"_

_"Just try to keep up."_

* * *

Rude was not surprised when he arrived at Reno's apartment the next morning and found that it had been trashed. He felt remorseful enough before having seen the mess. That guilt tempted him to even offer a hand in straightening up the place – if, of course, he could find the redhead in order to do so.

The bald Turk had let himself in when there had been no answer at Reno's door. It wasn't hard to do, considering that the locks were pretty uncomplicated, and Rude was able to work it open fairly fast. Breaking and entering was just another aspect of job training. "Reno?"

Nudging at the ransacked contents of the apartment with the tip of a spotless shoe, Rude scowled to himself as he placed the steaming Styrofoam cups that he'd brought with him onto a messy countertop. Had the redhead even come home? If his partner had been just another civilian, then Rude might have let the suspicion of robbery enter his mind, with a side of kidnapping. But this was Reno. And the level of massive destruction of personal property had the redhead's usual style stamped all over it.

He bent down, gingerly picking up the remains of a chair in one gloved hand, Rude studying the splinters of the broken bits as though they would give him some clue as to what had happened to it. There was an abrupt bang, and the chair leg exploded in Rude's grip. Startled, he reeled back a step, swinging his head to look at the bullet hole in the wall behind him before looking questioningly towards the bedroom.

The barrel of the gun in Reno's hand was still smoking as the redhead cocked it skyward, an expression of pure annoyance etched on his sharp features where he leaned in the doorway leading to his bedroom. Reno was shirtless, his hair in a tangled mess, obviously having been pulled right out sleep. "You just had to go and wake me up, didn't you?"

"Uh… sorry." Rude spread his hands up in front of him, not certain that an armed and irritated Reno was something he should risk dealing with. "I thought you might have been hurt."

"Not hurt. Just fucking tired. You could have just called, yo."

"I tried. Six times. But you didn't answer your phone."

Reno snorted. He slipped the gun into the waistband of his pajama bottoms before reaching up to rub at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Most people would have gotten the hint from that alone. Obviously, I wasn't feeling chatty."

"I just had to check for myself that everything was fine here." Rude murmured. He looked around the apartment again. "Was this your work?"

"Thought I'd redecorate. Now – obviously, you can see that I'm just as peachy as ever. Shouldn't you be on your way to work? You know.. to your job? Like the one I'd be going to, if you hadn't dicked me over?"

Rude grabbed up the cups from the countertop, ignoring the biting sarcasm in Reno's words. "We always have coffee before the start of shift. I brought some over here, to keep my routine intact. You want some? It's your favorite."

The redhead tried to look disdainful towards the coffee that was offered to him. Rude had screwed him over, broke into his apartment, woke him up, and now was trying to use coffee as some sort of peace offering? Once again, Reno realized just how socially inept his partner could be in some situations.

Still…

Reno snatched the cup out of Rude's hands with a low growling mutter. He then hurried past the bigger man. "Help me get the couch back up, yo."

"Of course." Rude took hold of the sofa with one hand, taking the brunt of its weight as they flipped it back onto its proper side. He sat down slowly on the cushions when Reno flopped down onto it, taking that as his cue that he was welcomed to sit. "I thought you might want to know about Elena's status."

"How's she doing? Did Hojo manage to make her sprout a second head yet?"

"No. Nothing like that. Once again, he wasn't able to find anything that was useful to him." Rude explained. "The damage to Elena's heart was mild – though they think that it's simply because she lives a cleaner lifestyle than you do. Since Hojo can't make use of her, he's lost interest. Tseng is pushing for her release later on this evening."

"That's nice for her. Elena gets to go back out on the field a day later, and I'm not even allowed to be stuck behind a desk."

Rude frowned down at his cup of coffee. "I'm sorry that you're unhappy about the situation. To be honest, I wasn't even sure if Tseng would allow it to happen. But when I brought the idea up to him, he was all for it. We both decided that it would be better for you to stay far away from Professor Hojo for awhile."

"You could have just asked me. I'm not afraid of that screwball." Reno shook his head. "I would have just kept it a secret from him. Keeping secrets is what Turks do best."

"It's not just Hojo that concerns me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"There's been some.. talk." Rude answered with hesitation, looking slowly around them as if he expected to find someone listening in.

Reno watched as the other Turk made that cautious scrutiny of his apartment. Rude being paranoid struck him as unusual. When it seemed that his partner wasn't going to continue, Reno hurriedly snapped his fingers beside the man's ear. "Yo, yo! There aren't any bugs in my house, man. Trust me – if there had been any here before last night, I managed to successfully destroy them in the process of all this mess."

"You're right." Rude nodded sheepishly. "It just always seemed dangerous to me to talk too openly about the President and his dealings. Just an old habit, I guess."

"So this goes all the way up to the top, huh?"

"It would seem so. Tseng informed me that he'd recently noticed a sudden increase in activity with construction in areas that weren't previously seen as a priority in rebuilding headquarters. While this could just be overlooked as the President's usual ever-changing bureaucracy, we discovered that it is actually Professor Hojo who is overseeing the project – with the President's approval, of course."

"Interesting.." Reno considered that bit of information as he thoughtfully sipped from his coffee. "So Hojo is in charge of the building, which naturally means that it must be something he intends to use for himself. Something for one of his science projects. Okay. So the President's obviously fallen for whatever pitch that whacko made to him. What's that got to do with me not being allowed at work?"

"I doubt that it is any coincidence that this crisis with these creatures begins in the city, and less than a year later, Hojo is put in charge of building a portion of Shinra's facilities. Professor Hojo is quite fixated on the concept of these creatures. It wouldn't surprise me if he did not convince the President that there was some need for Shinra to further investigate the nature of these entities."

"Shit. Like the Mako tubes?"

"Maybe. We don't know for sure. Not even the Turks have been given clearance to investigate the area or any of the research that might be taking place. Hojo has it zipped up tight. So long as the President chooses not to intervene, then there is nothing that we can do to find out more on the subject." Rude shook his head. "All the more reason why you need to stay on leave. Whatever Hojo has up his sleeve, I am sure that it won't effect you as badly if you maintain your distance."

"Yeah…" Reno scowled over the lip of his coffee. "I'll try and remember that."

"See that you do, partner." Rude warned firmly, before turning his wrist up to eye his watch. "Time to go. It's my first day on the job for a long while without you being there to make me late."

He rose up in one swift motion, sunglasses flashing off the light pouring through the window as he cocked his head to fix Reno with one more look. "I'll keep you informed, as more things develop. This could be bad – not just for you, but for all of us."

* * *

Dyme was startled by the sudden noise of someone knocking on his door. Actually, it sounded more like someone was pounding on his door with a fist. The young man cautiously went to the door, curious as to who had come to see him – and hoping that it wasn't the burly neighbor coming over to complain about his guitar playing again as he opened the door with a feeling of dread.

The sight of the redhead standing outside didn't do much to quell his nerves. "Oh. Oh, Mister.. er.. Reno, right? This is an unexpected—"

The blond was cut off when he was jostled by the redhead, Reno pushing past him into the shack with a dismissive tone. "Yeah, yeah. One big surprise, that's me. Vincent been around here at all today?"

"Mister Valentine?" Dyme didn't know what else to do besides shut the door behind his guest, turning to frown at the intruder. "No. I haven't seen him at all today. But I wouldn't come here expecting to find him easily – he tends to come and go as he pleases, and hardly ever on a regular basis."

"Shit. I needed to talk to him."

Dyme shrugged. "Sorry. I wish I could help, but I don't know where he goes when he leaves."

He watched was Reno yanked out one of the chairs at his kitchen table, the redhead flopping down into it as if it were his own. Dyme's uneasiness increased as he realized that Reno planned to stay. "I doubt it's going to do you any good to wait, Mister Reno. It could be a matter of days before he returns."

"I'll get around to him later, then. For now, though.." A slender finger jabbed itself at the opposite chair, as Reno instructed the blond in a voice that would not be argued with even by braver men. "Sit down, kid. We need to talk."

Dyme hurried to oblige the order, settling quickly into the empty seat. He muttered sullenly. "I'm hardly a 'kid', Mister Reno. I doubt that we're very far apart in age."

Reno snorted derisively in response. He made himself comfortable by sinking into a slouch, casually slinging his right arm up behind him on the crown of the chair. Reno's eyes gave Dyme a slow look over, before rolling. "Whatever. Until your balls drop down out of your spine, I'm not gonna be very convinced."

"Did you just come here to insult me?" Dyme asked sharply. Despite knowing that there was a strong chance that Reno was a dangerous man, the blond's temper was growing short.

Reno blanched. "Sorry.." His eyes dropped to the table, rimmed with genuine apology. Dyme watched as conflicting emotions warred across the redhead's sharp features. "I'm bad with this.."

"What, conversations?"

"Sort of. Handling people, I guess." Reno glanced aside towards the door. "Normally, I let my boss do the diplomatic stuff. Me, I usually just make people tell me what I want to hear, or force them to give me what I want. It's not often that I find myself having to be.. er… nice."

"Forcing?" Dyme's head cocked to the side. "Exactly what kind of line of work are you involved in, Mister Reno?"

"Eh. That's a rather touchy subject at the moment, kid." Reno's smirk was fleeting. "Besides, I didn't come here just so we could play 'getting-to-know-you'. I came here to talk about the other stuff. The dreams. How much do you know?"

"Only bits and pieces." Dyme found himself having to shift mental tracks abruptly, as Reno took their conversation in that new direction. He slid his palms slowly back and forth across the surface of the table. "Like I said last night, my dreams are fairly indistinct. The only thing that made me consider that they might be something unnatural, was the fact that I have them nightly, but with different events each time. I came to realize that I was witnessing someone else's life taking place."

"But who is it?" Reno gestured impatiently. "Who the hell are these people, and why are we dreaming about them? Have you figured any of that out?"

"I have thought about it a lot. Trying to put it into a perspective that I could understand, it helped me realize that this person in my dreams isn't entirely foreign to me. They aren't a stranger, to put it that way. They make decisions differently than I would, and they act differently than me in some ways. However, I feel like they are a part of who I am."

"Part of you?"

Dyme struggled to find the right explanation. "Like.. It's like what it would be like to have a twin, I think. A person very much like me, but inside a different body. Connected, but apart. Or maybe it's more like a reflection in a pool of water – once it get disturbed, and the image gets all blurred from the ripples."

Reno smirked. "Kinda funny that you'd use a water-related analogy."

"I guess it's my element." Dyme smiled faintly back. "Water, right? And you're fire."

"Guess so. I suppose it suits me. Though I can't say for sure that this guy is all that different from me." Reno mused. "We're actually very similar – aside from the obvious physical differences."

"You did say that your dreams are vivid. Perhaps you're more closely tied to this.. this other self."

"So you think that these people are other versions of us?" Reno quirked an eyebrow.

"That's the only thing that I've been able to determine from all of this." Dyme said with a nod. "These people are us, somehow. Shadows, just like those creatures who attacked us. Shadows of ourselves, in some way or another."

"Another version of me, eh?" The thought made Reno chuckle. "I know quite a few people who would say that that's the worst thing that could possibly happen. Another spawn of me, somewhere in the world."

Dyme smiled in response, finding himself feeling more relaxed now that Reno's mood had improved. He took a few seconds to consider something before pushing himself up from the table. "Mister Reno? There's something that I want you to have."

Reno curiously watched the young man move around the shack. "What? You're giving me a present or something?"

"Not quite." Dyme knelt down beside the bed shoved into the corner. Reno saw him bend over to search for something underneath it with an outstretched arm. "But I think it might be helpful to you. I know that it is for me."

When Dyme returned to the table, he offered Reno a slim book. Taking it with a puzzled frown, Reno gave it a quick look over. "You're giving me something to read? No offense, but I'm not exactly patient enough to sit down with a book for any length of time."

"It's not a book." Dyme shook his head. He had sat back down, snatching the book back from Reno's grip with a sigh. Flipping it open a few pages, Dyme tapped his finger on the text. "This is my journal. I've been writing in it ever since the attack. Ever since the dreams started."

Reno eyed him skeptically. "How is this supposed to help me?"

Dyme shrugged. "It might give you more information about your own dreams. Mister Valentine and I have gone over them again and again trying to pull out anything useful. The suggestion to start writing down the dreams had been his idea; he thought that it might help me to vent them out. It certainly has kept me from having them drive me crazy."

"I still don't get how reading about your dreams are supposed to help me with mine."

Dyme huffed, exasperated. He spun the book around back to himself, tracing a finger down the written text before reading an excerpt aloud. "'..all I know is that I must have been returning from somewhere. The guy with the scar on his face wasn't pleased with me – I could tell by the tone of his voice, though I can't recall what he said. I must have gone to my room at that time. I started playing on the guitar very quietly. I knew that I had to be quiet because my neighbor was in his own room trying to sleep. I didn't want to wake Axel up; I think he had set something of mine on fire the last time it happened…'" Dyme stopped there, looking over to Reno as the redhead made some choked sound in his throat. "What?"

Reno looked ill, his face having turned a clammy shade of pale. He blew out a breath, then quickly shook his head. Reno's voice was quiet with awe. "N-nothing. It's just… that's the first time I heard that name spoken outside of my own head."

"Axel?" Dyme blinked down at his open journal again. "That did make me a little confused, I have to admit."

"Why are you confused?"

Dyme peered across at the redhead. "Well, that should be obvious. The name of the man in my dreams is 'Demyx'. I can see where they came up with it; just the same as my own, but a little scrambled. Yet they decided to call you 'Axel'. But your name is 'Reno'. How is it that your name is so different from his, if you are both part of the same person?"

Reno had recovered from that initial thrill of shock. Now he gave Dyme a hard stare that promptly made the younger man clamp his mouth shut. The redhead rose abruptly from the table and snatched the journal out of Dyme's hands with a clipped explanation. "That's classified information. I gotta go. Thanks for the diary."

Nodding quickly, Dyme stayed in his chair as the redhead headed for the exit. His innocent question had apparently struck a nerve. He winced as Reno closed the door hard enough to shake his entire shack, before muttering to the empty air. "It's a _journal_, not a diary. Jerk."

* * *

A few nights after his visit with Dyme, Reno was unsurprised when a visitor suddenly arrived via his window. The redhead looked over from where he was sitting in his living room in order to see precisely how Vincent got in. He saw that gold-plated claw stretch its fingers out, heard a scratching against the wood of the sill as the enigmatic man deftly worked open the locked latch. Vincent's white face swung into view as he began to slide up the window. He paused as he noticed that Reno was watching his progress.

The redhead folded his arms, amused, as he called over. "Don't expect me to get up and help you, Valentine. If you're going to break in, you'll just have to manage it alone. I'm getting more coffee while I wait."

Reno eased up from his chair, grabbing his empty mug off the table beside him. He was able to hear the sounds of Vincent struggling to get the window open; apparently that bar that the redhead had wedged into the top of it was giving his would-be intruder a spot of trouble. Reno grinned to himself as he poured himself another cup, calling back over his shoulder, "Sounds like you're having some difficulties there, Vinnie. Are you sure that you don't just want to give up and use the front door like a normal person?"

His amusement transitioned to a scowl as Reno heard the unmistakable sound of metal being twisted. With mug in hand, the redhead returned to his living room just in time to see Vincent climb in through the opened window. The dark-haired man surveyed the now mangled top of it where the wood was now splintered around that ruined chunk of metal. His head turned back to Reno. "I seem to have broken your window. My apologies."

Reno's face smoothed blank as he registered the level of damage done to it. Then he shrugged dismissively. "It's not like I ever had any hope about getting my security deposit back. I'll just call maintenance in the morning. They know me well."

With a nod, Vincent reached up his clawed hand towards the window. Wrapping them around the bent metal, the man's muscles seemed to briefly tense, before he yanked it out of the mess with what looked like little effort. He offered it to Reno. "If this was an attempt at better security, then I'd have to rate it as a very poor."

"To people who aren't freakishly strong it would be." Reno pointed out as he took the bar from Vincent's outstretched claws. He twisted it around to check out all its twisted angles, before tossing it blindly into the rest of the piles of ruined furniture that he'd pushed up against a far corner.

Vincent ignored the insult, passing by the redhead without a remark, as the man's attention was drawn to a large white board that towered against one of the empty walls of Reno's living room. "What's this?"

"Research." Reno moved to stand next to the other man, smirking with satisfaction as his blue eyes quickly checked over the board. "Dyme loaned me his little book about his dreams. He'd suggested that I might be able to find some useful stuff out of it that the two of you had missed."

It was hard to tell when most of his face was obscured, but Reno had a feeling that Vincent looked impressed. Crimson eyes were searching over the board with open curiosity. "Did you? Find something that we missed, I mean."

"Not sure." Reno put his mug back down on the table. Dyme's journal lay open beside it. The redhead nudged Vincent aside as he stepped over to dominate the space in front of the board. He began pointing to some of the notes that he'd made. "Some of the names match up between his dreams and mine. So I figure that those people must be real."

"It's an organization of some sort, just like Shinra. But I doubt that these shadow-monkeys are anywhere near as equipped to operate on the scale that Shinra does. I think that they just call themselves "The Organization". Or something like that – I can't really remember. And I know that there's apparently some kind of fortress that they operate out of." Reno explained.

"Where is the fortress?"

"That's the tricky part." Reno shook his head. "As far as I can gather, it is absolutely nowhere on this planet. I have been to the deepest pits and the highest peaks; there is no place here that remotely resembles what Dyme and I saw."

Vincent nodded slowly, clearly turning the information over in his head. "Yet these creatures are present here. Theoretically, it wouldn't be too far out to assume that these beings were transported here through some means. They might be some form of alien life form."

"They're not.." Reno rolled his eyes, immediately protesting. "They're not little space creatures, Valentine. It's not like that at all." He scowled at the board, looking over all the pieces of information that he had written down. Reno still could not get them to link together into something that made sense. "They're something else. Something dangerous. And however it was that they came here, it wasn't in some kinda flying contraption. It was a door."

"A door?" Vincent tilted his head to regard Reno at an angle. "You don't think it plausible that they came from some alien planet, yet you believe that they simply let themselves in through a door?"

Reno nodded. "I do. Not a door between planets. I'm not talking like in some sort of universe sense. I'm saying that they came here from a connection to somewhere else entirely."

"A doorway to another world." Vincent turned away from the board to glance out the open window. He seemed to mentally drift from the present into some deep, distant space that Reno couldn't fathom. "I wonder if this door works both ways? Perhaps as an entrance.. as well as an exit?"

"It probably could. I don't know. I'm still patching all of this together as I go. Why?"

Vincent didn't answer him. Reno felt the silence stretch. It was starting to get uncomfortable when a thought finally occurred to him. "Oh. You're thinking about your friends, right? Where they might have disappeared to?"

"It has been over two years now." Vincent answered quietly. "Over two years, with absolutely no trace of any of them. It's as if the planet swallowed them up completely."

"Yeah.." Reno shifted awkwardly, uncertain of what to say. "Well. Maybe they did go through this same door or something. They could be out there somewhere still. So, uh.." The redhead gingerly patted Vincent on his closest shoulder. "..cheer up, man. Or the closest that you can manage."

Vincent glanced pointedly to the hand on his shoulder. As Reno quickly withdrew it as a result, the dark-haired man murmured decisively. "We need to find that door before Shinra does."

"We? What, suddenly you think that I'm on your team?"

"Are you saying that you're not?"

Reno scoffed. "Are you kidding me? Off duty or not, I'm a Turk through and through. That's not just gonna change because I might get pissed off with the assignments they give me now and then."

Vincent made a soft thoughtful sound in his throat. He walked away from Reno towards the window. "I see. That will require some thinking on my part, then, as to whether or not you can be completely trusted." His hand lifted to grip the bottom of the window, as Vincent twisted to look back at the redhead. "However… I think it might give you some things to think about as well."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"You claim absolute loyalty to the Turks, and therefore to Shinra." Vincent murmured. "What, then, will you do if you find out that Shinra is actually playing a large part in the presence of these creatures and their expanding numbers?"

"What are you talking about?" Reno felt his temper rising at the accusation. "There's no way that Shinra would be involved in that kind of—" He stopped mid-sentence. Suddenly, Rude's words from a few days back jumped to the forefront of his mind. Reno slowly shook his head. "There's… there's just no way."

"That remains to be seen." Vincent said in parting, as the man climbed out through the window and vanished in a flurry of red, leaving Reno to stare dumbfounded at the empty space outside.

* * *

Reno was still brooding the next day on his way back to the Slums. He had brought Dyme's journal along with him with the intention to return it. The redhead ignored the merchants that were peddling their wares along the side of the street, the thugs that lurked menacingly in the shadows, and even the pretty women that tried to get his attention for their own nefarious business. Not that the latter wasn't a temptation; Reno just couldn't work up the energy to flirt back with them.

The sun was bright in the sky. It was a pleasantly nice day despite his dark mood. Reno couldn't help but enjoy it on some level. He adjusted his sunglasses, allowing himself a tiny smile. Though that faded as he walked up to where Dyme's shack sat. Apparently a crowd had gathered outside.

While it wouldn't have put him on alert if he'd thought it was just a harmless little social gathering, Reno had become good at reading crowds. He could already hear the lilt of voices rising and falling with an edge of anger and encouragement. The redhead pushed his way into the crowd, shouldering a few of the loiterers aside as he waded through them to see what exactly had drawn their attention to Dyme's house.

"…told you how many times not to play this stupid thing?"

Reno strained through the last of the people, coming to stand on the inside of the crowd. He quickly took in the situation in front of him. It certainly didn't look good for Dyme.

The young man was jumping desperately into the air, hands straining to try and retrieve his guitar from where it was dangled over his head by a very large looking man. Reno judged that the guy's biceps were probably around the size of his skull – big enough that he made Dyme look like a dwarf in comparison. Dyme's voice was tremulous with emotion. "Just give it back! I wasn't even going to play it, I was just going to tune it!"

"I don't know." The man sneered. His large hand pushed out against Dyme's chest when the blond seemed close to getting a hold on the guitar, sending the young man falling to the ground in a cloud of dust. "It looked to me like you were going to play it. What do you guys think?"

He laughed outright as he glanced towards a trio of shady looking fellows that were on the opposite edge of the throng. Reno thought a couple of them looked familiar. Then again, the Turks often had to deal with some low-class citizens to get their jobs done. One of them, in a nasal voice, gave a cheer of encouragement. "Looked like he was going to play it, alright!"

"I wasn't going to.. I wasn't." Dyme wheezed. Reno saw him reach up to his chest, clutching it in pain.

"Maybe the little squirt just doesn't know how to play it right?" The bullying man's face split in a toothless grin. He leveled the guitar across his chest, stepping right in front of where Dyme sat, and began to mockingly pluck at the strings. "Bet I could teach you how to use it, kid. But – uh oh! It looks like I broke one." His fingers twisted sharply, snapping one of them with a discordant noise.

"Stop it!" Dyme climbed back onto his feet, face tensed with pain but determined, as he grabbed hold of the guitar in an attempt to wrench it free. "Stop it, stop it – give it back!"

"Aw. The little guy wants me to give it back to him." Dyme was shoved back again with a bark of laughter. "Okay, little guy, I'll give it back. Here it comes!" Dyme's eyes widened in horror as he watched the man heft the guitar up by the neck, swinging it up in preparation to slam it on the ground, undoubtedly with the intention to destroy it.

The guitar's downward swing was stopped halfway down. It made the crowd fall immediately silent in shock.

Reno's mag-rod shook slightly from where it had wedged underneath the body of the guitar. The force of the guy's swing hadn't been as bad as he'd expected. And certainly the guy's surprise at finding someone intervening had definitely worked to his advantage. The guy blinked down at Reno a few times before his brain caught up with him, snarling. "Who the hell are you?"

"Hey, it's nothing personal." Reno drawled. "It just seemed to me that a lady like you probably couldn't handle an instrument like this."

Dyme was staring up at him, though he had to juggle quickly when Reno tossed his journal down to the blond man. "M-mister Reno?"

"I got this covered, kid. No sweat." Reno assured him, before shifting his attention back to the big guy. He lowered his mag-rod down to his side, drumming it against the outside of his leg. "So. Tubby bitch like you hasn't got anything better to do today than harass some kid, huh? Well, you see, I've taken an issue to that. How about you give Dyme back his guitar so that we can all get back to enjoying this pleasant day?"

"Or what?" The man lowered the guitar, but did not relinquish it. Reno saw in his peripheral vision that the guy's goons were moving over to stand beside them, ready to step into the fight with their large leader.

Reno sighed heavily. He rolled his head around his shoulders, jerking it sharply until he heard a couple of satisfactory pops. "You know what? Nevermind." He deftly spun his mag-rod in his fingers before slapping it securely into his palm. "Negotiating with imbeciles isn't going to get me anywhere. Let's do this, ladies."

* * *

Rude finished making a few notations in his little black book. He was still trying to figure out how exactly it had happened that he'd had to come in to handle this situation. While it normally fell to the members of Shinra's military police to handle simple matters like domestic disputes between citizens, this particular one was rather out of the ordinary. He tapped the nub of his pen against the page of his book, looking back at the pair in front of him. "So, let me get this straight: There were four civilians that witnesses state were beat unconscious by some crazy red-haired guy. Then two of Shinra's military police were called to the scene to investigate – and both of them also ended up unconscious, supposedly by the same man. But neither of you saw anything, nor do you know where this man ran off to?"

"No clue." Reno answered with a solemn face. "He was here and then gone. Ain't that right, Dyme?"

Dyme looked up briefly towards Reno, before nodding to Rude. "Yeah. I didn't get a very good look at him, sir. I wish that I had more to tell you." Then Dyme dropped his attention back down to the guitar across his lap, the blond working carefully to wind a string into place on the instrument.

Reno cocked back in his chair, lacing his hands together against the base of his head. "It sounds to me like this is just another neighborhood going down the dumps, you know?"

"So you didn't see the assault take place?"

"Nope." Reno slowly shook his head.

"And you didn't know that Shinra's troops had been here?"

"Not the first clue."

"And neither of you have anything further to add?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful, man. I am just so disappointed in myself."

Rude's sunglasses were locked on his seated partner. "Would you care to explain why you're here?"

"I was just stopping by for a visit." Reno shrugged. "I've had time on my hands, so I've been expanding my social horizons. Dyme here is my new little buddy." He raised his right hand to slap the blond companionably on the back, apparently not noticing the younger man's wince. "We chat, hang out – and he doesn't go around removing me from my job."

Rude shook his head. "Reno. We need to talk." He gestured over to the side. The redhead reluctantly slid out of his chair to follow the bigger man. Dyme glanced up to watch them go.

When they were far enough away, Rude flipped his book shut and slid it away into the interior of his jacket. He tilted his head back to squint up at the sun overhead as Reno came to a stop beside him. "What, partner?"

"I don't know what you think you're up to, but you can't go around pulling stunts like these." Rude told him sternly. "You're lucky that I was the one who received the call on this. If it had been anyone else then you might have been arrested."

"Aw, come on. I'm a Turk. They're not just going to toss me in jail for a little assault and battery."

"Wrong, Reno. You're not an active Turk right now. You don't have the same immunities that you do while on active duty." Rude slid his sunglasses down on the bridge of his nose to glare at the redhead. "I'll clean up your mess this time, but don't let it happen again." He paused. "I am curious as to what provoked you into beating the crap out of some civilians and soldiers. Were you just having a bad day?"

"My day wasn't bad." Reno's shoulders pitched in a shrug. "The kid was just getting picked on and it irked me. Tseng is always going on and on about doing 'good deeds' and being 'good Samaritans'. I deserve a medal."

"Saving a kid from thugs is one thing - beating up Shinra soldiers that are attempting to arrest you is another."

"I didn't like their attitude." Reno rubbed a finger across the bottom of his nose. As if that were all the justification that he needed.

Rude pushed his sunglasses back up to shield his eyes. "Judging by the effectiveness of your display of combat today, I'd wager that you're feeling a little better these days?"

"Oddly, yes. My dreams have been really sporadic lately."

"That's good, Reno. Really good. Maybe a break was all you needed." Rude reached up to squeeze his shoulder. Then he dropped his hand away, scuffing a shoe awkwardly in the dirt. "I, uh.. It's not the same without you around. As soon as you're back to one hundred percent, I'll make sure that Tseng reinstates you right away."

"He'd better. I mean, just look at the state of things in my absence. I'm gone for a few weeks and now you guys have random citizens going around beating up Shinra troops." Reno smiled impishly. "You're hopeless without me."

"You may be right." Rude turned slightly to look back at where Dyme was still sitting in front of the shack. "So you've made a new friend? He doesn't strike me as someone that you would get along with."

Reno glanced in Dyme's direction. "He isn't. It's a long story. One that I can't tell you right now, partner. But maybe if you get off work early, we can meet at the usual dive for some dinner?"

"I will try. If I can get this mess straightened out in a reasonable timeframe."

"Just call me." The redhead swatted him lightly on the arm, tipping Rude a wink before he headed back to where Dyme was waiting.

Rude watched as the redhead left. He saw Reno drop back down into the empty chair, falling into conversation with the blond. Their interaction was easy; no awkwardness or strained tension. It was similar to how Reno was with him, though it had taken a few years to build that rapport and respect. Rude was surprised to discover that he was scowling hard enough to bring on a headache. He tried to shake it off as he headed in the direction of his vehicle.


	5. Chapter 5

Poor Rude. He has to put up with sooo much.

* * *

Seated at a cramped corner table in the back of the cheap restaurant they normally went to, Rude was doing his best not to fidget. He sat stiffly in his cushioned seat while keeping an eye towards the windows and the entrance. Reno was late in arriving, as usual. The redhead had never caught on to the concept of punctuality. He looked quickly towards the table as the waitress came to refill his coffee, the woman's eyebrows quirking at his jumpiness. "Sorry, sugar. Didn't mean to startle you. Is your friend here yet?"

"Not yet."

She flashed him an encouraging smile. "Well, take my advice: Just try to relax and enjoy your date. I'm sure that she'll like you just fine."

The waitress left him with a knowing wink and a sense of panic. Was that how his behavior was being perceived? Rude opened up his mouth to correct her, but she had already gone on to the next table. His face felt uncomfortably hot for some reason. He muttered under his breath and took another long sip from his mug while he contemplated on how her tip was going to be adjusted in lieu of her uninvited observation.

Rude was just about finished with that cup again when he finally heard the sound of a motorcycle pulling up to the restaurant. He glanced to the window just in time to see Reno parking his bike. The redhead slid his helmet off, locking it to the motorcycle before dismounting. Rude still found it unusual to see his partner in anything other than the usual unkempt Turk suit. But Reno seemed comfortable in civilian slacks, a plain shirt and a jacket. At least he kept the familiar goggles on. Rude saw the redhead pushing them up onto his head as the man entered the restaurant.

He raised a hand in greeting to catch Reno's attention. It earned him a smirk when the redhead finally spotted him and Reno slinked his way over to the table. As he slid into the opposite seat, Reno's blue eyes flickered up to the top of the bald Turk's head. "Rude, man, are you wearing a hat?"

Rude reached up self-consciously to adjust it. "I thought that it would help me blend in more."

"I guess it does." Reno's eyes swept over him in a languid study. "I should probably let you know, though: With that hat, shades and your uniform, you kinda look like one of those creeps who stares at little kids."

"Understood." The hat was quickly removed and placed down on the table beside him. Rude slid his sunglasses off in order to tuck them away in his pocket. "There. That better?"

Reno responded with a shrug. "You're always going to look like a bad ass, partner. But yes, I think you look closer to normal now." The redhead was signaling to a waitress. "Why are you trying so hard to blend in? Is this supposed to be an incognito dinner?"

"It occurred to me that you might not feel comfortable if you thought there was any chance of us being observed."

"Rude. Buddy." Reno's eyes were dancing as he leaned forward across the table towards the bigger man. "There's not a chance in hell that the two of us could ever go unnoticed in a crowd, yo."

The waitress returned to their table. Rude's naked eyes swiveled up to lock on her face. She seemed rather surprised to find the redhead sitting across from him. Then a strange sort of smile played across her lips. "Well. It looks like I was blessed with a table full of handsome tonight. Are you the date this big hunk was waiting for?"

"Um. I guess that'd be me." There was a wicked light in the redhead's eyes that Rude didn't like the look of. Reno eased back from his lean; he propped up his chin on both hands as he gave the waitress an appreciative look. "I tend to be fashionably late. The 'big hunk' wasn't waiting too long, was he?"

"Just long enough to put down an entire pot of coffee all on his own." She answered, taking that time to fill Rude's cup again as her eyes looked between the two of them. "Can I get you anything to drink while you're deciding on your order, handsome?"

"Coffee for me, too." Reno winked up at her.

"Will you be taking cream in it?"

"Of course. I like it a fine shade of mocha." Reno laced his fingers together, eyebrow lifting on his forehead as he looked pointedly back across at Rude.

"Oh. Oh my. I mean – okay! Right away." The waitress looked about as flustered as Rude felt. She quickly left the table to retrieve another mug.

Reno smirked at himself, quite pleased. That eyebrow remained lifted as he stared across at Rude, lips puckering up briefly. "Does that mean that you were here long, Big Hunk?"

"Stop that." Rude ordered him gruffly. "There's no need for you to tease the poor woman like that."

Reno collapsed back into his seat with laughter, unable to hold back any longer. He clutched at his sides when it started getting out of control. Rude stared at him with bland disapproval until the redhead regained his composure, Reno wiping at his eyes. "Sorry. Sorry, partner. I couldn't help myself. The look on her face – and on your face – was utterly classic. It was her fault for getting the wrong idea. You want me to flirt with her instead?"

"No! I just..." Rude shook his head. "I just want us to have something to eat without you turning it into a game. We did come here to discuss important information, after all. You might take it a little more seriously than this."

"Okay, okay. All fun aside." Reno waved his hands in the air in front of him to signal the surrender of his antics. "Yeah, we do have some stuff to catch up on, don't we?"

"You want to start by telling me about who this new friend of yours is? The one in the Slums?"

"Dyme?" Reno checked around them with a quick glance. "If I tell you, then you have to promise to keep it between us. This even has to stay a secret from the big boss. Think you can handle keeping it to yourself?"

"I'm no fool, Reno. I have kept plenty of things that you have done or been involved in from all of our superiors. Technically, since you are ranked just under Tseng, then that makes you my boss also."

"Yeah, but right now I am not your superior – get me?" Reno's blue eyes were intent on his face. "This is something that I am asking you to keep quiet; not as a Turk, or as my partner. As someone that I trust."

"I won't tell anyone, Reno. I promise."

"I believe you." The redhead smiled faintly. "Okay. Dyme is involved in all of this mess. Apparently, Valentine had saved him from an attack by those monsters just the same as he saved me. He's been having the same problems that I have as a result: the dreams, the aches, all of it. Valentine introduced me to him the night after you had me taken off duty."

"Another survivor. I can see why Vincent Valentine would want to keep that a secret from Shinra. So you have found some common suffering with this young man?"

"Sort of. I guess." Reno quieted as the waitress returned. He accepted the mug from her without any further flirtations. She looked a bit disappointed when she left the table. "It's not as if I want to have something like this in common with anybody, let alone that kid. Things have just kinda worked out that way. It has helped me to know that I'm not simply going crazy. Dyme just proves to me that all this crap is for real."

Rude nodded, waiting to see if the redhead had anything further to add. Reno swirled his coffee around with a stirring stick, then spoke again. "He's all right for a kid, I guess. He's nothing like us. Just one of those honest, wholesome types that got mixed into some surreal shit."

"You sound rather admiring of that quality."

"What, being honest and wholesome?" Reno smirked at the question. He turned his face towards the window with a shake of his head. "That's something I have never been and sure as hell something that I will never be. Can you ever imagine any one of us Turks being like that?"

Rude thought about it. It was amusing to speculate on. Out of all four of them, the bald Turk decided that Elena would be most able to pull off that sort of lifestyle. Then he remembered the last time he had seen her in battle; the deadly efficiency that she had used in killing their targets and the other hostiles that had attacked them. "No. I guess not. Though I suppose that is what makes us so good at being Turks."

"Anyway. Now you know the mystery behind Dyme and why the hell I'm bothering to hang around him. Was there stuff that you wanted to tell me? I assume that your attempts to 'blend in' must have been because you didn't want this conversation overheard?"

"That's correct." Rude's relaxed posture stiffened. He reached into the right hand side of his jacket and removed a folded piece of paper. The bald Turk placed it down on the top of the table beside his mug, fingers pushing it forward until he'd slid it across the surface to Reno. "I gathered some intelligence in regards to that subject we discussed at our morning meeting."

"About the building project?" Reno placed his own fingers down on the paper to accept it from his partner. He carefully unfolded it, only to discover that it was a document of some sort. There were some sketchy details about materials being purchased, schedules for shipments, and a long list of budgeted items. "Rude. This is a shopping list. What are you expecting me to get out of this? Deduction isn't one of my better skills, yo."

"The items, Reno. Just look at the items that are being shipped in by Hojo for the project."

The redhead's eyes scanned the contents more carefully. "Yeah. I still don't understand. I can't even pronounce half of these things. So… it's a very advanced shopping list?"

"Why would Shinra need to import all of these scientific-based items for a building project?"

Reno frowned, then brightened. "Oh. 'Cause they're building something for science?"

"Precisely. In fact, it is to my understanding that they are building a rather large laboratory underneath Shinra's headquarters. That isn't the biggest part of this, either."

"Something even worse than Hojo with a new playground? What could be worse?"

"There's a.." Rude paused to wet his lips, nervous, "there's talk of a new program. I was on detail for the President's security the other night. There were some papers on his desk. I don't think he realized that he'd left them out, or maybe he just didn't think I'd be interested enough to look. Hojo is in charge of this new program. It already has an operating codename: The Shadow Project. I think… they might be looking for a way to use these creatures for Shinra."

There was a rapid play of emotions across Reno's face. Rude hoped that he wasn't going to have an explosive reaction right there in the restaurant. He was surprised when the redhead's expression settled into deceptively bland. Reno carefully folded the inventory sheet closed before handing it back to Rude. "Here. You'd better take this."

"Okay." The bald Turk did as directed, tucking the paper back into that interior pocket. "Frankly, I'm relieved. I was afraid that you were going to have a worse reaction than th—" Rude cut himself off when he realized that Reno was sliding out from the other side of the table. He immediately reached out to clamp his hand on the cuff of the redhead's sleeve. "Wait, Reno. Where are you going?"

"Don't worry, man. There's just something that I've gotta do. Someone that I need to talk to." Reno shook himself free of the bigger man's grip. "Finish your coffee. I'm not going to do anything nearly as terrible as whatever you're imagining right now. Take it easy."

The redhead was moving quickly towards the door before Rude was even able to open his mouth again. He grunted as he squirmed to get out of the cramped seat, cursing the fact that Reno was just so damned fast. "Reno. Reno, wait. Reno!"

* * *

President Rufus Shinra sat behind his desk, serenely studying the play of lights across the nightline horizon of Midgar beyond the expansive window that blanketed the entire wall of his office. He delicately sipped from the cup of tea balanced upon his palm, the porcelain china clinking as he placed it back down on its saucer. "Do you hear that sound, Tseng?"

"Sound, sir?" The dark-haired Turk stood at attention near to Rufus' desk. His eyes drifted between the window and the doorway. While there may have been two soldiers posted as guards, Tseng refused to ever leave anything to chance by not remaining alert. "I hear nothing."

"Exactly." Rufus smiled to himself. He slowly swiveled his chair back towards his desk. "The city is quiet tonight. No cries of alarms, no sirens. Everything and everyone seem to be perfectly in their places. How rare it is to enjoy this type of peace."

"The military has been working very hard to bring the city to order, sir." Tseng pointed out. "We have units on constant patrol right up to the borders; if there is any threat remaining out there, it will be found and eliminated."

"I am glad to hear that you are being so thorough. However, that does raise one point of concern."

"Concern, sir?"

"Yes. Concern." Rufus ran his fingers across the folders atop his desk. "I am concerned that, despite the fact that every inch of this city is being combed for these troublemakers, there still remains no sign of Mister Vincent Valentine. Professor Hojo has expressed quite clearly how important he feels that the former Turk is to our operations. Yet you still have not managed to apprehend him?"

Tseng didn't even bat an eye at his superior's comments. "It is only a matter of time, sir. Not even Vincent Valentine can remain hidden forever."

"As always, Tseng, you say exactly what I wish to hear." Rufus spared him a fleeting smile before turning his attention to the reports in front of him.

He read through them for a minute or two, musing sounds escaping his throat whenever something in particular caught his eye. Though he was interrupted when the speakerphone on his desk chimed softly. The voice of his secretary filtered through. "There is a visitor on his way to see you, Mister President."

"I believe I informed you that I wanted no visitors for the rest of this evening?" Rufus' voice deepened with disapproval.

"Sorry, sir. I'm afraid that... well, he wouldn't listen to me, sir. The Turk was most adamant about seeing you immediately. He is already on the elevator heading up."

Tseng scowled at the speaker. Hearing that it was a Turk, the dark-haired man knew by the behavior alone that it certainly wasn't Rude who was coming to see Rufus. Yet the only other possibility in his mind promised ominous results. Rufus seemed to make his own conclusion from the woman's words, sighing. "What could Reno want at this hour? Didn't you remove him to medical leave, Tseng?"

"I did, sir. I have no idea why Reno is here." Tseng left the desk to stand near the elevator doors to wait for the arrival of the redhead. His hand cut through the air to wave the guards aside. "Let him through. I will deal with him."

The guards withdrew as directed, moving in unison as they shifted their post to stand near the windows behind where Rufus was seated. Tseng raised his eyes to watch the numbers climb as the elevator approached their floor. He could hear the thrum of the elevator growing louder as it neared. Finally, with a non-obtrusive chime, the elevator doors slid open. Tseng stepped forward. "Reno. I don't suppose you have a good reason for—"

He was interrupted as the redhead jostled him physically aside. Reno pointedly ignored the superior Turk as he stalked into the office. "I need to speak to the President. Alone." His eyes were blazing, the anger tempered but clearly on the verge of breaking from its restraint. "It's incredibly important."

Tseng had already recovered himself, reaching up to adjust his tie. While he gave no facial reaction to Reno's treatment, his cool voice was clipped. "You had better have a very good reason, Reno. This behavior is perfectly uncalled for."

"You're not my boss right now, isn't that true?" Reno shot a glare towards the dark-haired Turk. "You know, that little detail about removing me from duty? So it would seem that right now I don't have to listen to your orders." He swung his helmet, tossing it carelessly upon the leather couch against the outer wall. Reno folded his arms across his chest and settled his focus directly on Rufus. "The only person with that authority right now is the boss. You gonna tell me to leave, Boss, or are you gonna let me talk to you in private?"

"Sir?" Tseng looked expectantly towards Rufus.

Their boss let out a long breath, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as Rufus shook his head. "It had been so pleasantly quiet. I suppose there is nothing to be done to appease the firecracker except to grant his wish." Rufus dropped his hand away to address Tseng and the guards. "You are all dismissed to the adjacent rooms until I call for you. Make sure that we are not disturbed until our volatile redhead has his opportunity to speak his peace. Understood?"

"Understood, sir." Tseng silently exuded disappointment but did not protest. He did, however, fix Reno with an unkind look as he led the soldiers into the next room.

When the door clicked shut, Rufus laced his fingers together in front of him. The blond man considered his neglected tea before his face hardened disapprovingly. "You got your wish, Reno. Though your approach to the situation was nearly enough to have me order you removed from the property. I do hope that you have an explanation that pleases me enough not to change my mind?"

"Sir…" Reno walked up to stand at the other side of the desk. His anger had receded into something more plaintive, blue eyes searching the seated man's face as if trying to discovery some mystery from it. "Boss. _Rufus_. You know that I am one hundred percent behind you. Whatever you decide, whatever orders you give, I'll be the first one to jump when you tell me to."

"Though you tend to complain the entire time." Rufus pointed out, though without much force. The redhead's appealing nature prevented him from being too angry for the moment.

"I do." Reno nodded. "I do, and I am really sort of sorry about it. Kinda. But my point is that you know exactly how loyal I am to the Turks, to Shinra – especially to you. I have proven that time and time again. I have done things that anyone else would say was absolutely inhumane; sacrificed blood and bones; nearly killed myself several times all because you gave an order that I was going to complete at all costs. When you were at your lowest point, on the verge of death itself, it was me who risked it all to come in and save you, wasn't it?"

Rufus was silent. The redhead's words recalled unpleasant memories to his mind. Unbidden, he recalled the phantom ache of pains so intense that he'd even wished for death to quiet them forever. Rufus cleared his throat and reached for his tea. "My brain did not suffer any injuries, Reno. I remember the night fairly accurately. However, I do not see what has lead you to bring that up right now, of all times."

"I'm bringing it up because, frankly, you owe me one." Reno's cocky response earned him a hard look from the other man. He relented a bit, saying instead. "I mean it wasn't something that I had to do at the time. There was no Shinra, no boss, and as far as I knew – no more Turks. Everyone just dismissed you as a goner. I came in there, into sheer burning hell, because I wanted to make sure that if there was any chance at all to save you then I would be the one to take it. I did it because I didn't want to just give up on you. You're the one boss I've had that I could ever sincerely say that I trusted, that I respected. Now I am asking you to repay me that much. That respect."

"Very well." Rufus was impressed. "You have pleaded your case most passionately, Reno. While I am used to that sort of energy from you, I don't think that I have ever seen it so directed before." He smiled faintly up at the redhead. "How would you like me to properly display this sign of mutual respect?"

Reno braced his hands on the desk. "A little bird told me that you have Hojo working on a new project. I want to know all about it."

"Hm. A 'little bird' told you? I don't suppose that this bird was also brawny and bald as well?" Rufus chuckled to himself. "Sometimes I forget exactly how hard it is to keep anything secret from the Turks. You four have an uncanny knack for finding out even the utmost secrets of this company."

"We're trained to find out those kinds of secrets, boss. We're also trained on how to keep them. The only reason Rude told me is because he's under the impression that it has something to do with what happened to me."

"So you feel that it gives you the right to pry where you are unwelcome? Spying on the corporation and its dealings?"

Reno shook his head. "No, sir. Rude isn't like that – none of us are. But you are keeping a very big secret from the people that trust you to keep us in the loop. Especially considering that it deals with something that has directly affected two members of the Turks. You are being unfair to us."

"Are you lecturing me, Reno?"

"No, sir. No, it's not like that..." The redhead quickly waved his hands in the air.

Rufus smirked at the response. He took a sip of his tea, blanching at the taste. It had already gone cold. Placing it down on the desk, Rufus pushed slowly up from his chair. "Relax, Reno. A lecture now and then has never hurt me. Perhaps it may even do me some good." Rufus walked around his desk to stand beside the redhead. He slid an arm up, hand resting against Reno's back as he gestured towards the elevator doors. "Come and take a walk with me. There is something that I think you should see, if you're so eager to know everything."

The trip down into the bowels of Shinra's facility was a fast one. Given that several of the floors were still undergoing repairs from the damage sustained to it just a few years prior, they had to make very few stops along the way. Those stops that they did have to make proved quite uneventful, given that every employee opted to let Rufus and Reno ride the elevator alone to their destination. When they finally reached the ground level, Rufus flipped up a tiny panel below the buttons for the upper floors. He caught Reno's eye before dancing his fingers across the numbers on that exposed unit. "Naturally, access to the lower parts of this facility requires a password."

"Naturally." Reno echoed.

The elevator traveled down at least three more levels before finally coming to a stop. Rufus stepped forward as the doors spread apart, beckoning for the redhead to follow. His white clothes were a vibrant splash of color in their surroundings. The walls and floors were dark – nearly black, with only what appeared to be emergency lights dotting the corridor that Reno found himself walking in. "Is this part of the building running on its own generator?"

"So far, yes. It will remain independent from the rest of the facilities upon completion." Rufus explained as he guided the redhead along. "That will allow these laboratories the freedom to operate separately from the facilities above ground. Considering the necessity for advanced security measures down here, it was proposed that having it on a different grid would prevent any disastrous failures from occurring in the event that Shinra were to come under attack or somehow lose power."

"Makes sense to me. No one wants to have to chase down whatever mutant project of Hojo's might get loose as a result of a power outage." Reno slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers, eyes darting around him as he absorbed details about the place.

"I have made it very clear to Professor Hojo about the consequences that would happen as a result of such an event." Rufus murmured. "Needless to say, he has given his word that nothing of the sort will happen. Ah, here we are."

Reno was imagining all the wonderfully evil things that would happen to Hojo if he broke his promise to Rufus. He shook those thoughts off to entertain himself with at another time as he came to stand beside the blond.

They stood together on the edge of a railing, overlooking an expansive warehouse below. Reno could see the large machines that were still constructing pieces of the place together. Sparks were flying in some places where they fused slabs of metal together. It wasn't much more than a skeleton of metal, but it was obvious to see exactly where the construction was heading. "It looks like some sort of assembly line."

"I suppose you could describe it in such a manner." Rufus nodded. "Of course it will be much more advanced than serving as a mere assembly function. This will also serve as a storage facility, observation area, and training ground."

Reno slowly settled his hands on the bar of the railing in front of him. The metal was ice cold to the touch. His fingers curled around it tightly, until the redhead felt his knuckles protesting with pain from the tension. Blue eyes swept slowly across the wide expanse below. "And what exactly is Hojo intending to fill it with?"

"Reno. I doubt that you would be here if you didn't already know the answer to that question." Rufus sounded vaguely amused.

"Hojo wants to make more shadow monsters." Reno said dully. He was glad that he'd had the foresight to take hold of the railing. His head immediately began to swim as the redhead felt his heart lurch dangerously in his chest. He had to blink quickly to clear the fog that threatened to blind his vision.

"That is his wish, yes." Rufus angled his head, studying the redhead sidelong. "However, so far it is only a desire; Professor Hojo is finding himself unable to realize it."

"You mean that he's having trouble?"

"I mean that he is so far unable to do more than theorize that it would be possible. Hojo is unable to determine how such a task could even be done. Despite studying the creatures in his laboratory for an extensive amount of time, Hojo has still been unable to figure out how they can even be duplicated or bred."

Reno sighed heavily with relief. It was nearly as dizzying as his prior panic. "So there's no chance?"

"Not yet."

"Then why allow him to build all of this?" Reno swept his hand out to indicate the warehouse below.

Rufus smiled at the redhead. To an untrained eye, it might have looked innocently pleasant. Yet years of experience let Reno see the underlying emotion behind it - the hunger for power and a desire to harness it. "Because. If he somehow does manage to find a way, then I want to be fully prepared to start the project in earnest."

"What if he starts producing these things, only to find out that they can't be controlled?"

Rufus chuckled softly. He patted Reno on the forearm as if the redhead were a child that had just said something adorable. "Don't be silly. You of all people should know by now, Reno: There is nothing that I can't control." Rufus was still chuckling to himself as he turned away from the railing, walking back in the direction of the elevator. "Now that you have your answers, I'll be returning to my office and a fresh cup of tea. I'm sure that you can find your way out all on your own, Reno." His hand lifted in a wave before the white-clad president vanished around the corner and left the redhead standing alone on the precipice of a nightmare.

* * *

Reno was giving his lighter a workout. He'd flip it open; strike the flame; stare at it for a minute; flip it shut. His thumb was bound to get a callous at the rate he was going. He lit it again, the tiny dancing flame reflected off the surface of his eyes as he remained absorbed in thought. Once he'd arrived home from Shinra's headquarters, Reno had retreated up onto the roof of his apartment building. The night sky was mild and the quiet provided him an ideal atmosphere for mulling over the jumble in his brain.

"You seem quite preoccupied tonight."

The redhead abruptly flipped the lid of his lighter closed, curling the silver into the curve of his palm. He strained his head in order to look back at where Vincent was standing on the roof behind him. Strangely, the sudden appearance didn't even startle him. "You could say that. I had some bad news tonight on the workplace front."

"Then you're aware of the situation." The dark-haired man stepped over with silent footfalls. Vincent's cloak flowed around him as he seated himself on an air-duct next to Reno. His eyes seemed to faintly glow out here in the dimly lit evening.

"Yeah." Reno lurched upward as that restless energy drove him to his feet. He began to pace there in front of Vincent, feeling a heated pressure from the lighter in his grip. "Rufus thinks that he'll somehow be able to control those monsters. That if Hojo can find a way to create them then Shinra can harness their power. Like some sort of twisted army."

"Do you think that he will be successful?"

"Who, Hojo? So far the boss isn't convinced that the lunatic can manage it." Reno shook his head. "Though if he gets enough time to continue dissecting these creatures then he will probably pull it off. It's just a matter of how long that will take."

Vincent looked away from Reno in order to blink up at the moon overhead. "Hojo is a man of great determination. If he intends to succeed at the task, then he will do so no matter what the cost. That kind of power is dangerous in the hands of a man like him."

"Trust me, I agree. That loon is probably the one person left on this planet that can creep out every single one of the Turks – and we don't spook easily."

"You're troubled. That much is obvious. What do you intend to do?"

Reno stopped pacing and settled his hands on his hips. He curled up his lower lip, worrying it between his teeth as he considered his options. "I don't want an army of those monsters running around Midgar. They can't be controlled, not by anyone here. If Hojo manages to discover how these things are created then it would be a disaster."

"Agreed. How do you intend to stop it from happening? I can't imagine that you would consider attacking Shinra, nor can I see you working so openly against your superiors."

"Hell no. Those kind of thoughts didn't even cross my mind." Reno scoffed at the very suggestion that he'd do something so suicidal. "I was thinking of something indirect. Something that wouldn't even happen directly against Shinra. Something that would simply put an end to this entire fiasco without even a hint of an attack."

"So you don't want to simply blow something up? I'm impressed." Vincent appraised him intently. "What's your plan, Reno?"

The redhead slowly rotated his wrist, looking down at the lighter in his palm. Reno let his mind wage war with his instincts. Could he really do something underhanded that would undermine the success of Shinra? Was it truly possible for him to act against the wishes of his boss? He weighed the options; do nothing and watch everything go to hell, or do something and raise hell. Reno made his decision as his eyes swung up to lock on Vincent's. "We need to find that door. We need to find it, close it, and lock it up tight."

"That would certainly put a damper in Hojo's plans." Vincent met his gaze unflinchingly. His gold claw lifted from where it had been resting against his leg, the sharp tips flexing as the man gestured. "Closing that door might very well be the key to cutting off the source of where these creatures are coming from. However, there is one minor detail that seems to be missing in your grand scheme."

"Yeah? What's that?"

Vincent pointed between the two of them. "Neither one of us knows where the door is."

"Shit." Reno's intensity deflated. He snapped his fingers, hopeful. "What about Dyme? Do you think he might know where it's located?"

"There might be a chance. I haven't asked him."

Reno threw his hands up in the air. "I guess we'll just have to start there. You go collect his ass. In the meantime, I'm gonna go back over all the notes that I took and see if there might be some clue in there about this door."

"I suppose there are few other options." Vincent rose from his spot, brushing aside his cloak when it threatened to get tangled up in his legs. "Wait here. I'll return with Dyme within the hour."

"Yo, Vincent?" The dark-haired man stopped when Reno spoke, twisting to look questioningly at the redhead. Reno smirked. "The kid's a bit squirrelly. You might wanna bring him in through the front door."

"Hm. Noted."

* * *

Late into the evening, the three of them had made no progress. Reno spent most of his time pacing behind the couch. Vincent had become so engrossed in staring at the board with Reno's information on it that it seemed he was trying to force it to give him the answer by sheer willpower. Dyme cradled his face mournfully in both hands. Finally, the young man broke their frustrated silence. "I'm stumped. Is it all right with you, Reno, if I make something to eat? Maybe I'll think better if my stomach isn't empty."

"Knock yourself out, kid." Reno scoffed. "If you can pull something edible together from that kitchen then you are a more skilled man than I."

Dyme uncurled from his spot on the couch and headed into the kitchen, leaving Vincent sitting there by himself. Reno noticed how eerily still the enigmatic figure had become. Did the creepy hero go catatonic? Was he sleeping with his eyes open? Reno wouldn't have put that one past him. "Uh, Vincent? You in there?"

"We're approaching this from the wrong angle." Vincent stated quietly.

"Wrong angle?" Reno stepped around the couch and up to the board. He looked each note over individually. Had he missed something in all of it? It all seemed pretty straightforward. "Like what? It's all here, yo. There is absolutely nothing about the location of any door."

"Nothing at all that _you_ can remember, no."

Dyme drifted back from the kitchen as Vincent spoke, the man's words having snared his interest enough that he forgot about the food. "I can't remember anything much about any doors either, Mister Valentine. I've tried."

"Neither of you recall the door, except in vague symbolism. Nor will you remember anything about where the door is. It isn't a memory that either of you have had. I am not sure that your dreams – no, these supposed counterparts of yours – have yet given you knowledge concerning its location."

"So you're saying that we're screwed?"

"Not exactly." Vincent looked up at Reno. "When was the last time that you were overcome by sleep?"

"You mean one of those unexpected naps? Earlier this evening. I was supposed to meet Rude for dinner, but I blacked out when I was getting ready. It made me late getting there. I didn't tell him that it had happened. Why?"

"Did you dream anything?"

"Nope. It was too short. I just remember putting on my pants and then waking up half-dressed across my bed. Not that that's an unusual position to find myself in or anything." Reno grinned.

Dyme shook his head at Reno's cocky response. Vincent ignored it, as usual. "So you only have these dreams when you are sleeping for an extended period of time?"

"Usually, like if I am trying to sleep for the night. Sometimes I'll even get stuff if I'm out for a little over an hour. Hardly ever when it's less. Why are you so curious about my sleeping habits?"

"How do you feel after these surprise bouts of sleep?"

Dyme sighed. "Tired. Exhausted, sometimes. It feels like I just ran for miles and miles. All of my energy is drained out of me."

"So there may be a chance that these counterparts might be drawing off your energy. It might be unconscious on their part, yet it obviously effects you."

"Inconvenient leeches. That sounds about right." Reno smirked.

"Have either of you tried to exert it the other way?"

Reno's smile dropped at the question. He blinked hurriedly. "What, you mean... have I tried to use the other guy for a energy boost? I wouldn't even have considered the idea, yo."

"I haven't tried it either, Mister Valentine." Dyme answered with a shrug.

"We should explore the idea further. There is a chance that these people you both are envisioning could lead us to finding this door. If we can find it, then we can determine how to close it for good."

"Oh yeah? What does that do your for buddies out there in Who-Knows-Land?" Reno cocked a hand on his hip, bending to peer down at Vincent. "Are you saying that you're going to let us shut them there forever? Or are you gonna develop a conscience and chicken out at the last second like you hero types always do?"

"I have no hope of finding them. Though I believe that they would want me to do whatever it took to prevent this planet from falling to ruin again." Vincent murmured. "It would be wrong of me to think selfishly under these circumstances."

Reno nodded, satisfied. "Okay then. So I'm gonna wager a guess here that what you want us to do is try to sleep on it a few nights and run a test to check if we can get these goons to tell us where the door is?"

"No. Not a few nights. If Hojo is on the verge of a breakthrough, then time is of the essence. We will have to hurry if we are going to be successful in stopping him." Vincent pushed up from the couch. "What's the best way for you to fall into a deep sleep?"

"Me? Usually a lot of alcohol will do the trick. That doesn't really lead me to dreaming, though. It generally just leads to a blackout."

"That rules out liquor. It is too great a risk to your heart. I suppose we can try another approach – does a warm glass of milk really help people fall asleep?"

"It hasn't helped me. I stopped drinking the stuff a long time ago." Reno paused. "Wait – are you volunteering me to do this?"

Vincent pushed up to stand. "Dyme?"

"Yes, Mister Valentine?" The blond straightened as he was addressed.

"I need you to start preparing Reno's room. Try to recover it as much as possible from the disaster that it is. Make certain that it will be conducive to undisturbed sleep."

"Hold it!" Reno's arm swung out, finger jabbing towards Dyme with enough force that the blond stopped on his way to fulfill Vincent's order. "Just wait a goddamn minute here, man. I haven't agreed to do this yet." That finger then thrust itself hard to prod against Vincent's chest. "You need to stop thinking that just because you're maybe a little bit smarter than me, and since you're old enough to be my great-grandfather, that you automatically get to decide what happens here. I will be the one who decides what I want to do and when I want to do it. Under my own terms, yo."

"Very well. Then you don't want to go through with this?"

"I didn't say that. I'm just... Just let me work this out in my own brain." Reno reached both hands up to rub at his eyes, frazzled.

"I understand that I am asking a considerable amount of effort from you, Reno. Though I have been apart from the Turks for many years, I can easily recall how its members operated. I am sure that the idea of putting your trust in Dyme or myself is difficult; leaving yourself vulnerable in a state of sleep must seem even less appealing. If there are other options available to us, then I am happy to take them."

Vincent sighed faintly. "However, our window of opportunity shrinks more and more every day. You have the strongest, most reliable connection to whatever is happening here. Our best chance at success lies with you. To put it simply: Do you have any better ideas?"

"No, I don't. Your plan is the best that we've got going for us." Reno walked over to the kitchen, retrieving his cell phone from where it sat forgotten on the counter. "I'm just gonna change things up a little to make it more tolerable for me. If this redhead is gonna play guinea pig, then he's gonna do it his way."

Dyme watched as Reno started dialing on his phone. "Who are you calling? I didn't think we were supposed to involve anyone else?"

"She's already involved. Now shut up and let me talk." Reno scowled at the blond as he pressed the phone up to his ear. The other two men waited, hearing only one side of the conversation as the redhead spoke cheerfully into the receiver. "Well hello to you, too, doll face. Just how is the second sexiest Turk doing at this late hour?"

His mouth quirked with a smile, Reno's eyes dancing as he listened to the response. "I know, I know. I'm sure that Tseng is absolutely furious with me. That man really needs to work on his temper, yo."

Reno gingerly pulled the cell phone back a few inches from his ear, immediately before a shrill sound of yelling began pouring out of his phone. When it subsided, the redhead cautiously moved it back to his ear. "Hey, listen, Elena. You're right on all counts. I am a horrible, immature asshole. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, there's a really big favor that I need to ask of you…"

* * *

Elena's nose wrinkled delicately with distaste as she surveyed the hallway outside of Reno's door. If the shoddy exterior of the place was any promise of what was inside, the woman made up her mind not to touch anything for very long. She scowled as she wondered what had possessed her to give in to Reno's request. Elena knocked on his door with a long-suffering sigh, clutching the small black box of items that the redhead had requested for her to bring.

She was surprised when an unknown blond man opened the door instead of Reno. Elena blinked at him. "Oh. Sorry. Is this not where Reno lives?"

"This is his place, yes." He smiled brightly at her. "He's just getting stuff ready in the other room. Why don't you come on inside? The hallway is a pretty shady place to linger too long."

"That's exactly what I was thinking." Elena said as she stepped into the apartment. She noticed that the place was mostly trashed. Only a few pieces of furniture had been spared from whatever caused this mass destruction. "Though this apartment doesn't seem much better."

"It does leave something to be desired." The man's smile spread further as he stuck his hand out towards her. "You're Elena, is that right? I'm Dyme. A friend of Reno's."

"I didn't know that he had any friends." Shaking his hand, she couldn't help a giggle. "Reno's so hard to get along with if you don't know how to handle him." Elena studied him as they shook. He was fairly good looking. His manner so far had been quite charming. She couldn't recall ever having seen him prior to tonight, but… "Have we met before?"

Dyme released her hand, shrugging his shoulders with a wry expression. "We might have. Honestly, I never can be sure these days. Would you like anything to drink? I'm not particularly useful here tonight, but I know how to be a good host."

"Sure." Elena smiled gratefully at his offer, watching as Dyme went into the kitchen. Her smile dropped when Reno came sauntering out of another door. The redhead was in a state of undress; Reno hadn't bothered to wear a shirt to greet her, and the pants that he wore were slung inappropriately low on his hips. "Why are you coming out here with next to no clothes on, Reno?"

"Are you kidding me? If you didn't notice, I am wearing pants." Reno was smiling devilishly as he walked up to the petite blonde. He wriggled his eyebrows at Elena in a suggestive manner. "But if you really want to see what I normally wear to bed, that can be arranged."

Reno's flirting earned him a look of irritation from Elena. She shoved him back roughly with a derisive snort. "It's too late in the evening and I worked way too hard today to put up with your games, Reno. Just take this stuff that you wanted so that I can go home to sleep." The woman raised the box. "Though I still don't understand what you could want with these things. Or why you didn't want me to clear it with Tseng."

"I am not on Tseng's list of favorite people right now, doll. You know that." Reno took the box from her, stepping around her towards the kitchen just as Dyme came out with a glass of water. The redhead eyed him curiously as he gave it to Elena.

"I haven't had the chance to speak with him about the details." Elena nodded politely to Dyme, as she took a quick drink of water. "All that he told me was that you and Rude both did something to make him unhappy. Not that that's unusual - the two of you manage to crash helicopters once a year. You were overdue for upsetting him."

"Yeah, well. Stuff happens." The redhead began taking things out of the box. Reno carefully handled the medical supplies, lifting one of the tiny crystal bottles up to read the label.

Elena frowned at Reno over the rim of her glass. "So you aren't going to tell me what you intend to use all that for? It wasn't exactly easy for me to get all of this stuff, at this hour, without anyone else knowing about it. I could have gotten into trouble if any of the medics had caught me."

"What did he ask you to bring?" Dyme asked curiously. "He got pretty secretive in his conversation with you."

"Some supplies from Shinra's medical ward." Elena moved over to stand beside Reno. She placed her glass down on the counter next to where he was sorting things. "You aren't planning to do anything nefarious with these drugs, are you, Reno?"

"It's just to help with sleep, doll. I need to catch up on some of that. This should help."

Reno tensed when he heard Vincent's voice coming from the living room behind them. "You don't intend to tell her?"

Elena looked sharply in the direction of the shrouded man. The blonde's eyes widened as she recognized Vincent. Reno was opening his mouth to discourage her reaction, yet Elena was already reaching into her blazer. Firming her stance, the blonde Turk drew her gun and aimed it steadily at Vincent. "You! Hands where I can see them!"

"Elena, stand down." Reno ordered her tiredly.

"No! The Turks have their orders, Reno. We're supposed to apprehend Vincent Valentine. Shinra has been putting every effort into trying to find this man, and now here he is inside your living room!"

Vincent calmly raised both hands into the air. Having Elena's gun pointed at him didn't seem to faze the man much. "I am here for a very good reason. I think Reno might be acting unfairly in keeping you in the dark."

Elena shook her head. "I don't care about your reasons. I cannot allow you to remain free. Orders are orders. Now keep your hands where I can see them while I call for backup."

"Tch." Reno acted quickly, face stamped with annoyance. As Elena reached for her phone, the redhead clamped his hand down on the woman's wrist. He wrenched the gun out of Elena's grasp before the woman could even manage to fight him for it. Reno tossed it casually in Dyme's direction. The blond man gasped as he fumbled for the weapon, staring down at it with wide-eyed fear. "Enough of this bullshit. I don't have the patience or the mental energy to deal. Elena, just sit down for right now and stop talking. You're giving me a headache."

"Reno!" Elena protested. "I have my orders—"

"And your orders are wrong." Reno snapped hotly back at her. His ire shifted to Vincent. "This is exactly why I told you to stay the fuck in the bedroom. I didn't want her to see you, dumb ass."

"I was under the mistaken belief that you had made her aware of the situation." Vincent said in his defense. "I had no idea that you would invite her here under false pretenses."

Elena glared up at Reno. She sat down grudgingly on one of the nearby stools in the kitchen, arms folding across her chest. "Somebody had better start telling me exactly what is going on here. Otherwise, I am just going to have to have you all taken into custody."

Seeing that she wasn't about to make any further move to attack, Vincent lowered his arms down to his sides with a nod. "I would be happy to explain everything."


End file.
